Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) is an American
performance art group that pioneered the genre of large-scale machine performance. Founded in 1978 by
Mark Pauline
Mark Pauline (born December 14, 1953) is an American performance artist and inventor, best known as founder and director of Survival Research Laboratories. He is a 1977 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Pauline founded SR ...
, the group is known in particular for their performances where custom-built machines, often robotic, compete to destroy each other.
The performances, described by one critic as "noisy, violent and destructive",
are noted for the visual and aural cacophony created by the often dangerous interactions of the machinery.
History
SRL was founded in San Francisco in 1978 by Mark Pauline. Critics have drawn parallels between the group's founding and the
punk and
industrial music scenes of San Francisco at the time. The group's name is a parody of corporate culture.
Pauline has said that "the vision for SRL was always about creepy, scary, violent and extreme performances that really captured the feeling of machines as living things".
SRL's early collaborators included the machine artists including
Matt Heckert
Matt Heckert is an American sound artist, born in 1957. He was involved in Survival Research laboratories in the 1980s before becoming a machine musical artist.
Matt Heckert graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1979 with a Bachelor ...
and Eric Werner.
Heckert's main work in the group centered on the acoustic and musical parts of performance.
He left the group in 1988 to follow his musical interests.
After about 30 years in
San Francisco, California, SRL moved to
Petaluma, California in 2008.
Shows
As of late 2012, SRL has conducted over 50 shows throughout the world, mostly in the Western United States. SRL shows are essentially performance art installations acted out by machines rather than people. The interactions between the machines have been characterized as "noisy, violent, and destructive".
A frequent tag-line on SRL literature is "Producing the most dangerous shows on Earth."
A side-effect of the group's activities is frequent interactions with governmental and legal authorities.
Their performances are also given colorfully elaborate names as a comment on bureaucratically generated research projects & papers, such as ''A Calculated Forecast of Ultimate Doom: Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement.''
[Lucas, Adam (1995)]
"Mark Pauline – The Art Of War"
21-C Magazine.
The first SRL show was ''Machine Sex'' on February 25, 1979.
The 1982 show ''A Cruel and Relentless Plot to Pervert the Flesh of beasts to Unholy Uses'' integrated machines with objects such as mummified and dissected animals and a robot that was part metallic dog, part cadaver.
The group performed ''The Misfortunes of Desire (Acted Out at an Imaginary Location Symbolizing Everything Worth Having)'' in 1988 in the parking lot of
Shea Stadium.
Using 22 tons of equipment, the show included a shock wave cannon, a 4-legged walking machine, a high power flame thrower, a radio-controlled tank and a 1,200-pound catapult.
The show was sponsored by the New York City arts groups
The New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...
,
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1974 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectura ...
, and
The Kitchen.
In 1989 the group presented ''Illusions of Shameless Abundance'' in San Francisco. The show, staged in the SOMA area under an on-ramp to the
Bay Bridge, featured stacks of burning pianos, vats of spoiled food and flame-breathing robots.
The show's use of fake sculptures that resembled high explosive devices led to beach closures and the involvement of the city's bomb squad the next day.
The group produced the 1995 show ''Crime Wave'' in San Francisco.
Their 1996 show in Phoenix, Arizona, titled ''Survival Research Laboratories Contemplates a Million Inconsiderate Experiments'', featured robots, flame throwers and a
V-1 jet engine.
In 1997 SRL staged ''The Unexpected Destruction of Elaborately Engineered Artifacts'' in Austin, Texas.
In 2006 they performed ''Ghostly Scenes of Infernal Desecration'' in San Jose, California.
The performance featured an air launcher, a hovercraft and a shockwave cannon.
Reception
SRL has received serious consideration as not only a pioneer of industrial performance art, but also as a legitimate heir to the traditions of
Dada and the art of
Jean Tinguely, in which paradoxical creations are used to call into question the state and direction of technological society.
In addition, many SRL members have gone on to be involved in other avant-garde artistic projects such as the
Cacophony Society, the
Suicide Club,
The Haters,
Robochrist Industries, People Hater, Seemen,
Burning Man
Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...
, and robotics projects such as
Battlebots and
Robot Wars.
SRL has also been praised as being one place where many women have had access to machine workshop tools.
List of SRL devices
[Lucas, Adam (1995)]
"Mark Pauline – The Art Of War"
21-C Magazine.<-->
:''See also Survival Research Laboratories
'
* 1979 ''Assured Destructive Capability'' – a robot that defecated on photographs of Soviet premier at the time.
*''Flame Hurricane'' – five Pulsejet engines and louvers arranged in a circle to produce a rapidly rotating column of hot wind, plus flames
* ''Hand-O'-God'' - a giant spring-loaded hand, cocked by an air cylinder
* ''High Pressure Air Launcher'' – originally developed by NASA for use in avalanche control; fires beer cans filled with plaster using a charge. A parody of warfare technologies, with the device's operator wearing a head-mounted display.
* ''The Pitching Machine'' – a device which fires 2x4 pieces of lumber
* ''Shockwave Cannon'' – a device which fires a shockwave of air, shattering glass remotely with the force, constructed similarly to the shockwave-based ''
Wunderwaffen'' anti-bomber device or the so-called
hail cannon.
* ''Six-Legged "Running" Machine'' – a gas-engine powered tripedal device featuring three pairs of legs which reciprocate using a chain-driven tank-tread-like actuator, alternately extending to provide locomotion. The front pair of legs pivots, providing steering, while the rear two pairs provide forward motion.
* ''Square Wheeled Car'' – industrial vehicle equipped with square wheels and no brakes or external control.
* 1984 ''Stu Walker'' – a spider-like flame-shooting robot that was controlled by the motions of Mark Pauline's pet guinea pig "Stu"
* ''The V1'' – a replica of the engine of a World War II
V1 flying bomb pulse jet
* ''Wheelocopter'' – a spinning machine which applies the principles of rotorcraft to a two-dimensional plane
Accidents and controversies
In 1982 Pauline lost two fingers from his right hand while attempting to make solid rocket fuel.
On the basis of their 1989 San Francisco show ''Illusions of Shameless Abundance'' SRL was banned in 2011 from performing in the city by the
San Francisco Fire Department.
The sound of 1991 test in San Francisco of a homemade V-1 rocket engine resulted in police attention and a reported 300 calls to the city's earthquake hotline.
In 2007 SRL crew member Todd Blair suffered a serious brain injury during the take-down of an SRL show at the Robodock Arts & Technology Festival in Amsterdam.
References
*
External links
*
Survival Research Labsnbsp;–
YouTube
{{Authority control
Culture of San Francisco
Robotic art
Performance art in California
Performance artist collectives
1979 establishments in California