Is it apocalypse? No, it's art. A look into wrecking robots for creativity's sake. By GEETA DAYAL.
The Inchworm shows what he's made of. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Laughing Squid/Scott Beale)
"Sparkshooter" sparkles. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Laughing Squid/Scott Beale)
Machinery on fire during a Survival Research Laboratories performance in San Jose. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Laughing Squid/Scott Beale)
Fire marshals survey the post-show wreckage at the Survival Research Laboratories performance in San Jose. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Laughing Squid/Scott Beale)
If anything ever resembled the end of the world, this was it.
Huge, freakish machines, which appeared to do their bidding sans human involvement, ran roughshod over an empty lot behind a Silicon Valley building. Robots breathed fire and battled each other to untimely deaths. Flames streaked the night sky; orange sparks fell like rain; 10-foot-tall bolts of lightning flew from a giant Tesla coil. Explosions punctuated the silence as machines lumbered through the lot.
The show, "Ghostly Scenes of Infernal Desecration," part of the 13th annual International Symposium for Electronic Arts in San Jose and the ZeroOne art festival, was a day's work for the robot-wrecking crew of Survival Research Laboratories.
The San Francisco collective, headed by Mark Pauline, has staged death-defying mechanized happenings all over the U.S. and Europe since 1978 -- its rare appearance in San Jose last week drew more than 2,000 spectators from all over.
So what if the show seemed like the end of the world? It was supposed to. "This show was my interpretation of the apocalypse," Pauline says.
Scenes from Dante's "Inferno" and accompanying themes of conflagration, purgatory, and destruction were embedded in the flaming wreckage. Pauline has no specific message but says he likes "to create a pastiche of ideas and images that key into what people are reading about in the papers and the news."
In short order, the strange contraptions came to life, then fell to death.
A giant golden statue of a man resembling Atlas dropped golden balls and was subsumed by surrounding flames. A remote-controlled vehicle drove around, spitting fire. Balls of fire and gray clouds of smoke illuminated the sky above.
The machinery moved with a certain grace, like a choreographed mechanical ballet. Most striking, though, was the sound: Thunderous explosions combined with the clanking, huffing, and wheezing of angry machines, sounding a sort of industrial symphony of the end of time.
SRL's appearances are rare. Custom-building robots and planning their fiery interactions takes time, but permitting is also an obstacle. Staging a show involves permission from the fire department, police and other authorities. The process can take years. "People," Pauline says, "tend to get a little bit panicky."
Some cities, such as SRL's hometown of San Francisco, have banned it entirely. But despite San Francisco's decision, Pauline said the city has been key to SRL's continuing existence.
"The gap between engineers and artists here is incredibly narrow," Pauline says. "The engineers see themselves as creative people with powerful skills. That's how SRL has maintained pace."
___
asap contributor Geeta Dayal is a freelance writer.
___
Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .
©2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
