Survival Research Laboratory sounds like a Pentagon office that helps desperate troops decide which bugs to eat. But that couldn't be further from reality. Founded in 1978 by Mark Pauline, the loosely knit group is dedicated in part to "taking materials and equipment that could be used for military purposes and using them in aesthetic or performative ways," says member Susan Joyce.
Speaking by phone from the group's San Francisco headquarters, a large, downtown machine shop, Joyce explains that SRL's upcoming show at UNLV's Donna Beam Fine Arts Gallery will cover the group's 25-year history in videos and photos of performances—and with examples of some of the machines central to those performances. Pauline and his ever-shifting cadre of collaborators create machines that amaze and entertain, often in ways that are both destructive and vaguely threatening. As a reviewer noted in New Art Examiner five years ago: "It is the irresistible allure of aggression, danger, and violence rendered as a form of devil-may-care macho play."
The gallery show should provide some sober insight into this quarter-century's mayhem, but its culminating event, a performance February 7 at Sam Boyd Stadium, will bring it to life.
"We plan to make this the biggest SRL performance ever," says Joyce, who considers it "very appropriate" to hold the event in Spectacle City. "We're going to bring just about every machine we've got."
That should include a pulse-jet "hover craft," a six-legged "running machine," and a machine that spits 8-foot-long two-by-fours at 200 miles per hour. As many as 50 people will come from San Francisco to manage the highly choreographed event, along with local volunteers coordinated by UNLV art professor Robert Wysocki.
Tickets for the February 7 performance are $25 and available at unlv.tickets.com. In the meantime, check out the Donna Beam show, which opens January 12.
Chuck Twardy has written about art and architecture for several daily newspapers and for magazines such as Metropolis.