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Event
AN INITIATION INTO VIOLENT EXHIBITIONS OF MACHINE PERFORMANCE: THREE DECADES OF SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABS
Dir. Various
USA. ___ min
For over three decades, Survival Research Labs has awed and intimidated with large-scale, fantastically destructive mechanized performance art. Founded in 1978 by Mark Pauline and joined by a larger organization of engineers, technicians, and artists, SRL literally built a world with humanity marginalized as fragile spectator, completely irrelevant to the chaotic industrial maelstrom at hand. Brutal is incorrect inhuman is the exact word these events feature machines turned performers, completely freed from practical use. Names like Flame Hurricane, Shockwave Cannon, Hand O God, Big Arm, and Mr. Satan undersell the intense workmanship and severe destructive capabilities behind each creation often utilizing sketchily-sourced military-grade parts, these machines are elegant and pragmatic in their operation. Unlike todays everyday appliances, designed to be physically inaccessible to the user, SRLs robots are marvels of hand-built efficient futility.
Spectacle is very proud to present a sampler of SRLs over-30 years and 50 shows of work, each a general dedication to the idea of more is more, with apolitical agenda and displays of terrifying power. Things comes full circle with L.A. MOCAs 2011 installation; featuring the De-Manufacturing Machine from SRLs first show MACHINE SEX, then sprung on an unsuspecting audience at a commandeered gas station, now in a comfortable institutional setting destroying electronic-organic creations (including a crawling baby doll fitted inside a raw chicken), nothing could more perfectly sum up SRLs history of creation and subversion than well-heeled museum patrons attentively waiting to be splattered by guts and wires. SRL continues producing the most dangerous shows on earth.
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LocationSPECTACLE THEATER (View)
124 South 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11249
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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