Survival Research Laboratories

OK, the Web may not be the best way to experience the robotic chaos unleashed by San Francisco's Survival Research Labs (SRL). For one thing, an actual SRL "art" performance--in which fearsome automata threaten to turn against the squishy-skinned, defenseless audience--is about as disturbing and visceral as an earthquake at epicenter. The machines--constructed from military surplus parts, jet engines, and other industrial detritus--walk, grind, spit flame, shoot bullets, scream, and actually cause your flesh to vibrate. Sometimes they explode in a shower of shrapnel, injuring hapless bystanders. There's little chance of your PC or Mac combusting in your face while you browse the SRL Web page, but since mad genius Mark Pauline has trouble finding venues willing to host his "Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement," the Web may be the only place to encounter the San Francisco-based performance art troupe. MPEG videos give a taste of the power of an SRL event--especially the scared-stiff expressions of onlookers, their hair actually standing on end. Pauline (who sacrificed a thumb to his art--and true to his machinist aesthetic, transplanted a toe to his hand) has loaded the site with amazing sounds and sights, including a jumbo close-up of a jagged wound on his thigh that had to be stitched up like a baseball (cause: "hoist failure"). (JW)

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