Survival Research Laboratory: Man and Machine

An interesting video highlighting the performance art of Marc Pauline and the Los Angeles artist collective, Survival Research Laboratory(SRL). Founded during the late 1970's, SRL aims to show interactions between machine and machine, or man and machine. During a heightened time of technological overload post Vietnam and the Cold War, SRL is interested in the often visceral, bloody scenes of war, death, and destruction that is transmitted to the general public through technological mediums, ie television and radio. Frustrated that these mediums flatten and neutralize the horrors of modern times, SRL has put on several performances that highlight and expand upon that horror. The video above (1980)shows SRL's man-made machines attacking and exploding each other and themselves, effective as suicide/homicide apparatuses. Later works have similarly explored the relationship between man and machine, using robots to systematically work together to tear apart the bodies of dead animals in front of a willing audience.