Academy Award winning animator Bruce Petty takes a satirical look at the 'contraptions' that shape our lives. Education, sex, finance, globalism, art, media, medicine, law, government and even the brain are transformed by Petty into evolving machines. Beginning with a simple concept, he takes us on an anarchic journey through history as each apparatus builds to its complex contemporary form. In the wry, ironic style that is his hallmark, Petty reveals these to be contraptions of a very human kind - imperfect, sometimes unpredictable and always subject to change. A witty, provocative and entertaining series narrated by Andrew Denton.