George Rhoads is well known for his large audiokinetic ball sculptures that attract and engage people throughout the world. Balls roll and percussion devices clatter and chime in airports, hospitals, art museums, science museums, shopping centers and other public places. Rhoads has designed over 250 unique pieces, virtually all of which are still in operation.

In his sculptures, Rhoads strives to demystify technology. He says that “machines are interesting to everybody, but people usually don’t understand them because, as in a gasoline engine, the fun part goes on inside the cylinder. So I’ve restricted myself to mechanisms that you can see and understand quickly.” The chief goal of his machines is to engage people in play. He sees himself as a prophet the mature industrial age, a time in which the upheaval and human suffering brought about by the industrial revolution will have subsided, and, for machines as well as people, there will be no distinction between work and play.