Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) is a machine performance art group credited for pioneering the genre of large-scale machine performance.[1][2][3] After about 30 years in San Francisco, California, SRL spent most of 2008 moving to Petaluma, California.[4]
Since its inception in 1978 SRL has operated as an organization of creative technicians and technical creatives dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare. Since 1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations in the United States and Europe. Each performance consists of a unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and special-effects devices, employed in developing themes of socio-political satire. Humans are present only as audience or operators.
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SRL was founded by Mark Pauline in November, 1978. The first show was "Machine Sex" on 25 Feb 1979[5].
Throughout the 1980s Pauline was joined by a number of machine artists including Matt Heckert and Eric Werner. Matt Heckert's main work in the group centered around the acoustic and musical parts of performance. He left the group in 1988[6] to follow his musical interests, developing the award winning Mechanical Sound Orchestra (MSO)[7][8][9] which has toured the USA and Europe extensively.
Through late 2006, SRL has conducted 48 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 are usually 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.
Early performances featured animal skins and cadavers animated by mechanical endoskeletons; recent performances feature large and technically advanced robots that reflect a paranoid militaristic imagination. In the SRL workshop, a high value is placed on found or re-purposed materials and machines. An example is The Big Arm, a telemetrically controlled robot made from an abandoned back-hoe that drags itself around by its "arm."
SRL is considered to be the pioneer of industrial performing arts. Many SRL members are also involved in other avant-garde artistic projects such as the Cacophony Society, the Suicide Club, The Haters, GX Jupitter-Larsen, Robochrist Industries, People Hater, Seemen, Burning Man, and robotics projects such as Battlebots and Robot Wars.
SRL has been praised as being one place where many women have had access to machine workshops. Rumours abound of a RE-Search[10] book in preparation; events have been held discussing this theme[11].
SRL devices are usually given interesting names, such as the Flame Hurricane, the Large Shock Wave Cannon and the Hand-O'-God. Their performances are also given colorful names, such as The Unexpected Destruction of Elaborately Engineered Artifacts and Survival Research Laboratories Contemplates a Million Inconsiderate Experiments.
Names include: