My friend Tom the Fool (Tom Sgouros) is brilliant at creating shows around pieces of machinery.
I first met him when he was doing a street performance piece in which he had a conversation with his boombox (really a recording of his own voice). He's done slide shows (he cloned himself using an MRI machine). And now he has a robot named Judy, who plays chess and gets into trouble.
Okay, so this is a shameless plug. But if you live near any of his upcoming shows, you should go see him, it's an entertaining evening that will make you think from a different angle.