"The Helpless Robot" by Norman T. White, an interactive sculpture, will be located in a public place seeking interaction with spectators through polite requests for human cooperation. Depending on the response of the passer-by, the robot will come up with more conversation and movements.

In its final form, the piece "The Helpless Robot" will be a freestanding electronically-controlled kinetic sculpture, with an overall height of about 5 feet, and a diameter of 3 to 4 feet at the base. It will taper inward toward the top, in a bi-symmetrical, yet somewhat irregular, organic way.

It will have a relatively smooth exterior, composed primarily of curved metal plates attached to an underlying frame. Here and there will be transparent acrylic panels allowing onlookers to get glimpses of the electronic equipment inside. There will be handle-like protrusions at a few key points. Although this platform will be stationary, the sculpture will be free to rotate upon its base. Such rotation will not be generated from within. Instead, likethe traditional "mobile", the work will be essentially passive, depending on external forces for its motion. However, whereas traditional mobiles harness wind, water, or other prime force of nature, this one will have to enlist the muscles of human beings. This it will do with its one critical mode of output: its electronically-synthesized voice.

At present, the piece exists in a prototype form, comprised of three task-sharing microcomputer-based "modules" The first, custom-built by myself, has the job of tracking the angular position of the rotating section, and detecting the presence of onlookers via an ultrasonic range-finding sensor. The second module, also custom-built, takes the raw data generated by the first module, and preprocesses it for use by the third module. It also contains the speech synthesizer, and obeys speech-related commands from the third module. The third module is responsible for making sense of the filtered sense data in the context of past events, and formulating appropriate speech responses.

I see the work behaving as the classic "bustler" For instance, it might initially enlist human cooperation with a polite 'Excuse me ... have you got a moment?,' or any one of a stock of such unimposing phrases. It might then ask to be rotated: "Could you please turn me just a bit to the right ... No! Not that way ... theother way!" In such a way, as it senses cooperation, it tends to become evermore demanding, becoming in the end, if its human collaborators let it, dictatorial. Such a subtle shift from entertainer to tyrant hopefully does not go unnoticed. Ultimately, my purpose behind the work is not to exploit, but to instruct.