Survival Research Laboratories

So Im looking for a piece of computer equipment for the company but I dont want to spend the $ 3k that it’s going to go for retail. We look around on Ebay and we see the item for $ 900. Score. A week passes and I see a package. It’s from Petaluma and has SRL marked on it. Wait. I’ve seen those initials before but it’s been a while. I ask the person who cut the check and made the transaction, «did you deal with someone named Mark Pauline?» Sure enough it was him, the founder of Survival Research Labs. As a young art student I saw and idolized guys like Pauline and Alan Rath, who were creating these autonomous bots that would interact in random unguessable ways. paving the way for a wave of robotics as art and be precursor for things like Robot Wars. It looks like SRL has moved out of SF to Petaluma but they still do shows every once in a while. Legendary

Note: SRL has moved to Petaluma, to a bigger facility. So don’t go looking for it in SF.

«Worst bathroom in SF»
You said it babe!
We were laughing about the SRL bathroom the other day — the first time I went in there, and every subsequent time, I covered the floor with Comet.
Apparently it hasn’t been cleaned since the last time I cleaned it — except when Bobbi cleaned it when Morrie moved in.
I blame that bathroom, or my inability to get past it, for my not learning how to weld. After 2 SRL shows I was done. And when I did Mark’s books, I held it until I got home.
Personally, I liked the knife collection and the alligator.

SRL’s Mark Pauline once blasted off his thumb while packing some pipe full of homemade explosives. So naturally he had one of his toes surgically chopped off and then sewn onto his mangled hand so he could still have an opposible digit to work with.
Are YOU that committed to your art and/​or form of personal expression?
SRL has been staging violent and fiery robot death spectacles for over 20 years and shows no sign of stopping. To witness an SRL performance is to be overwhelmed. Political messages commingle with pure pyromaniacal entertainment in ways that stimulate both your brain chemistry and your sex drive.
If you get bored at an SRL spectacular, you should probably seek immediate medical help — you may already be dead.

I have been going these shows for years.
It all started when I was a kid. (what good story doesn’t start like this?)
One of my friends invited me to a «show», he called it. He lured me in by telling me there would be fire and robots and dead animals. What teenage boy wouldn’t like the sound of that?
«Besides, you can drink without getting busted.» he told me. I was there on my skateboard with my forty oz. of Mickey’s. Along with a bunch of my other skating buddies.
This was one of the first shows, under the freeway 1986 I think. Anyways, there was this dinosaur looking thing slowly hobbling around, some fire, some other noise thing and a crowd of people.
Every time the «robots» would fall over or do some dumb shit, people would cheer. My friends and I were like, what are these people seeing that we aren’t? We thought that they were on drugs.
Later after the show when you can go and touch the machines or whatever, we met the person who built most of the machines. His name was Mark, he was a cool guy, for not knowing us he talked to us for a long time. He invited us down to help him clean up after the show. Then in the middle of talking to him the fire dept. shows up with the cops. We split because we were under aged and drunk.
I grew up and later went to more shows, the older I got the more I appreciated these performances. I still talk to the director Mark from time to time, but he is married and has a kid.
One of my all time favorite shows was Austin TX., a lot of fun and a big show to boot.
This is what makes Frisco so great, crazy shit like this.

Insanity, chaos, fire, steel, diesel, body odor, insane sound frequencies, jet engines, three headed dogs, pulse cannons, hover crafts, and nothing but cool fucking people.
SRL is an organization based in SF that makes art of robotics, military surplus and fire.
I had the absolutest pleasure of being allowed to volunteer with SRL over the past month helping them get ready for the show at the ZeroOne Arts Festival in San Jose. Being kind of a newb in the «fucking insanely dangerous job» catagory, i was given the task of helping to build an army of 4ft autonomous robotic cockroaches. All of the pieces are scraps, including the wiper motors used to move the leg armatures. I was also there to grind sharp edges, scout for parts, fetch coffee and help feed them. (The Wifey Mel and Unilocal’s own Amy J catered the San Jose event)
But overall, i loved the fact that they destroy their art for the show, and rebuild it again. All painstakingly worked on and tweaked, and engineered over a year or two’s time, to be ruthlessly punished and destroyed in an event that makes BattleBots look like some sissy pansy Nerf football game between the Doilies and the Daisies.
Its almost Buddhist, like with the sand art.
This is kind of metaphoric for the whole collection of robots. Ergo, «Fucking insanely dangerous objects»…here is a small list of their arsenal…
1. The V1 — Basically a WW2 buzzbomb engine redesigned to emit a low frequency pulse rather than thrust. Imagine one of those tricked out Hondas in the Sunset with a subwoofer big enough to be felt in the Mission.
2. The Boeing (FlameWhistle) — A heavily modified Boeing jet with a whistle affixed to it making itthe worlds loudest flamethrower.
3. The Pitching Machine — SRL’s most dangerous shit… This thing can throw 6 foot 2×4’s around 150mph.
4. The Cyclops — A 20 foot tall foam statue that with the use of a loader, can toss acetyline filled balloons like little bombs.
There are so many more…
Again, i must have wet my pants with springtime freshness every three minutes working on this project because i was constantly reminded with test runs and «HOLY FUCK“s often heard through the shop. It isnt often that i get really type A about a project that isnt my own, but when i was surrounded by what could only be described as «the physical incarnation of the thoughts in Mick’s head on a 24-​hour basis»…how could i refuse?
SRL…i pledge my allegiance to get coffee for you, feed you, get cut by you, become deaf for you, get burned more for you, fuck, ill get SCARRED for you… But mostly, thank you for making a weird time in my life worthwhile.

a club for connoisseurs of rotating machinery. hippies, fans of wood, posers, and loose lips that sink ships are not welcomed here.
worst bathroom in SF with the most interesting ‘library’. when you’re bored reading about all the silly million dollar offers SRL director mark pauline turns down then posts to the toilet wall for all to read, there is the trusty bathroom laptop with the web at your fingertips as you plop away. includes lemon-​scented boraxo to remove mummified dog grime or some other hazardous waste from your hands.
every nook and cranny is packed with interesting equipment, special light and sound «fx», and dubious «stuff» with interesting anecdotes behind them. the shop certainly has evolved into a museum for odd items and awesome machines. the experiments performed at the «lab» over the years have fertilized the farm nearby to grow large, mutated 3 foot carrots.
features the best urban possum shooting range in SF, muni bus radiator bbq grill, and an outdoor penthouse will call box for intern housing.
the best place to make the most absurd, dangerous, one of a kind machines and props in the world. sometimes fondly known as the social retard lounge, it is also the best place to meet the most surly, absurd, dangerous, one of a kind sci-​punk minds in the world.

This one goes to 11. Machines, fire, mayhem. It’s definitely not for everyone. Become a groupie or an actual participant. Or merely more informed. You owe it to yourself, and your offspring.