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The robot used by M. Bory for Sans Objet was originally what could be thought of as a prosthetic machine; it was intended to do work that humans could envision doing with their own bodies, but which could be done much more easily and quickly with the machine. Originally, the robot had a purpose: it built cars.

The robot had a context. There were others  (other machines, materials, humans who programmed it and fulfilled various functions) with which it interacted and which gave it its purpose. Removed from its context, it lacks identity. It is pointless; sans objet. As much as the humans must re-define themselves in relation to the robot in whose world they find themselves, the robot needs to re-define itself in relation to the humans. Re-programmed, it has as its purpose only to interact with humans.

But as Friedrich Kittler might point out, even as a prosthetic machine in its original context, the robot was more than merely prosthetic. It was an actor in a discourse network, in relation to which the human designers and the human workers were re-defined. Once it had been re-programmed for the stage piece, its identity as an agent in its relationship with the humans, perhaps an intentional agent, needs to be re-calibrated. As do, of course, the identities of the different humans now interacting with it. By re-contextualizing this discourse network, M. Bory points up its existence in so-called "normal" life.