If someone asked me “what was the most San Francisco thing in the 1980s?” I might have to say “Survival Research Labs.” Describing what they were is tricky, but maybe: a collective of artist/engineer/mad genius/mischief-makers led by a guy named Mark Pauline. They constructed elaborate, brutal, surrealistically violent machines, and staged public performances where the machines paraded around, attacked one another, and threatened or terrorized the audience.
The machines were generally made of steel, sometimes adorned with roadkill, paper or canvas or other “skins,” and might resemble human or animal forms, but just as often looked military. In fact I believe they “borrowed” a lot of their raw materials from military sources. The scale of these machines grew to an impressive size, some as big as twenty feet tall or larger, and were almost always animatronic—either remote-controlled, or running on some kind of programmed loop. Two kinds of motion were commonly designed: some way of moving around the arena, and some kind of attacking mechanism, like a claw.
This might sound like SRL was just a precursor to the popular kid-friendly TV series “Battlebots,” and it’s possible it did directly inspired that show (not to mention robot-building as a niche American hobby), but SRL events were never about competition. They were conceived and executed squarely in the realm of performance art—done in the confrontational style of the 1980s—as a critique of modernity. If anything, the machine performances were anti-competitive, laying bare the ugly, horrific side of late-stage capitalism, neoliberalism, consumer culture, and other neat features of modern life.
Before moving to San Francisco, I was aware of Survival Research Labs through underground press publications (e.g. the Re/Search issue on Industrial Culture). But by the time I got here in 1988, their performances were starting to wind down, so I only had the privilege of seeing them live twice. The first one was staged under the 101 freeway overpass, with a chain-link perimeter fence erected around a several-blocks-long area. Tickets were sold to the event, but it sold out pretty quickly, so we had to find a vantage point for viewing from outside the fencing. I think maybe we were standing up on the roofs of some cars that were parked nearby.
I don’t know if SRL pulled permits for this event, but if so, I have absolutely no idea how they got them approved unless it was through bribes. Numerous grand pianos had been hung by steel cables from the bottom of the overpass, 100 feet above the arena. The machines started attacking each other and making a lot of noise. One of the machines was a sound cannon that would patrol the area, take aim at spectators and fire a massive sonic boom at people’s faces. At some point, a large quantity of oil was spilled on the ground and ignited, probably on purpose, causing a giant conflagration. Guys were running around on the ground with remote-control devices and walkie talkies and fire extinguishers as the metal monsters lurched and swung at each other. It really seemed like somebody was going to get very badly hurt. Amazingly, I don’t recall seeing any police or fire department presence at any time.
There is just no way that anything remotely resembling this kind of event would be doable today. You can see some highlights of that event and others on YouTube.
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