This article explores the production of ON TRACK, a performative installation, whose slippery, smelly narrative emerges from the interactions and interferences between a mechanical mop, a troupe of robotic brushes and spilling viscous fluids. The machinic assemblage performs ‘other ways of knowing’, unfolding where the programmed and choreographed meet the messy and unknown. The work was created within the e-MobiLArt project.