Survival Research Laboratories


Survival Research Laboratories is an American performance art group that pioneered the genre of large-scale machine performance. Founded in 1978 by Mark Pauline, 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 cacaphony 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 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 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.
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 metallic dog, part cadaver.
The group performed The Misfortunes of Desire 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, Creative Time, and The Kitchen.
In 1989 the group presented Illusions of Shameless Abundance in San Francisco. The show, staged under an on-ramp to the Golden Gate 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, 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

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.