Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) is a performance art group that pioneered the genre of large-scale machine performance. The essence of the project can best be explained in the words of founder Mark Pauline: “the vision for SRL was always about creepy, scary, violent and extreme performances that really captured the feeling of machines as living things”.

To get closer to the philosophy of SRL, we will show three selected works by Jonathan Reiss, who not only documented the group, but also made video art with them. Get ready for absurd DIY robotics that get caught up in a dangerous cacophonous marriage of smoke, fire, steel, blood, oil, electrocution and unbearable screaming.

Selected works:

A BITTER MESSAGE OF HOPELESS GRIEF, 1988, 13 min // A SCENIC HARVEST FROM THE KINGDOM OF PAIN, 1984, 46 min // THE WILL TO PROVOKE: AN ACCOUNT OF FANTASTIC SCHEMES FOR INITIATING SOCIAL IMPROVEMENTS, 1989, 45 min

-Hilde