NOT EVERY police department has to face bands of marauding robots threatening
mayhem and death. So pity the poor cops of San Francisco. Just seven weeks ago
they were dispatched to raid a scrapyard in the Bayview district to halt a
rampaging group of angry automatons. Again.
The rampaging machines were the main attraction at an event staged among
piles of wrecked cars by artist/engineer Mark Pauline. Pauline is founder of
Survival Research Labs, an organisation dedicated to staging public performances
with a difference.
SRL鈥檚 props include a Shock Cannon that belches out 鈥渧ortex
rings鈥濃�攕hock waves that can knock you off your feet at 10 metres or
shatter glass at 100. There鈥檚 the Pitching Machine designed to shoot planks of
timber at almost 300 kilometres per hour. Then there are flame-throwers built
from second-hand jet engines, not to mention the monster mobile catapults.
Pauline and his cohorts have even resurrected extreme military hardware such as
pulse-jet engines of the kind that powered German V-1 鈥渇lying bombs鈥� during the
Second World War.
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Controlled remotely or automated with self-evolving computer programs, these
machines are set loose to tear, gouge, burn and trample each other. Since the
late 1970s, SRL has put on dozens of these violent theatrical events worldwide,
frequently attracting thousands of spectators. The local police and army may
turn up too, whether invited or not. No surprise, considering the clashes make
Robot Wars look like a vicarage tea party.
SRL鈥檚 headquarters are located at the bottom of a dead-end street in a bleak
San Francisco industrial zone. Every inch of the sprawling workshop is packed
with the paraphernalia of invention. The rusting jaws and claws of dormant
machines dangle from the ceiling; huge capacitor banks and strobe lights lurk in
corners; the high-tech gadgetry which Pauline buys second-hand and sells on to
make a living is strewn everywhere.
Outside, SRL鈥檚 newest toy awaits reprogramming following a recent test run.
This 300-kilogram, all aluminium hovercraft can shimmy along at 50 kilometres
per hour, powered by four 1.3-metre-long pulse-jet engines. Fuelled by propane
gas, the jets generate an ear-walloping 150 decibels of sound. 鈥淭his must be the
loudest robot in the world,鈥� Pauline says proudly.
Spectators are usually provided with earplugs, but Pauline鈥檚 penchant for
lung-scouring smoke, deafening noise, blinding lights and low-flying missiles
probably leaves some people wishing they鈥檇 come wearing full-body armour. 鈥淚鈥檓
an old-time risk-taker,鈥� Pauline admits, an attitude presumably best shared by
his audiences.
Take SRL鈥檚 show at Yoyogi Stadium in Tokyo in 1999. Local safety officers
began to fret as 250 3-metre baulks of wood, ejected at almost 300 kilometres
per hour from the Pitching Machine, started to ricochet off the floor and
splinter above the audience. Pauline recalls how the officials kept telling him
to aim the machine lower so the planks would not land so close to the
audience鈥攖hough he thought at the time they were saying 鈥渟lower鈥�. 鈥淚
ignored them anyway,鈥� says Pauline. Then during a show in Graz, Austria,
explosions panicked the locals who thought their town was being invaded. The
next thing Pauline knew, the Austrian army turned up.
No surprise then that the authorities in San Francisco have moved to bring
Pauline鈥檚 activities to a halt. After a show in 1995, he was arrested on arson
charges. Even the FBI has shown an interest. And despite what Pauline describes
as SRL鈥檚 鈥減erfect safety record鈥�, his projects have so often been stymied by the
authorities that he is now prepared to stage a full-scale event free of charge
for anyone who secures the necessary permits. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 consider what SRL does
as being dangerous if they had an appropriate location to do it in,鈥� says San
Francisco Fire Inspector Marta McGovern.
You certainly wouldn鈥檛 want to get too close. Highlights of recent shows
include the Running Machine, a six-legged monster that wields mechanical jaws on
an articulated arm. Then there鈥檚 the Taser, an electromagnetic rail gun copied
from a propulsion system designed for submarines. Charged by a huge capacitor
bank, it shoots balls of molten metal across the stage.
SRL鈥檚 proximity to Silicon Valley has helped bring many of these robot dreams
to fruition. Aside from attracting skilled tech industry collaborators who drop
by in the evenings to help, Pauline can also get his hands on the latest
technologies. He has tinkered with genetic algorithms鈥攕oftware that
evolves鈥攊n an attempt to make robots called Swarmers exhibit flocking
behaviour. 鈥淲e were also the first to offer the public the chance to operate
lethal machinery over the Internet,鈥� says Pauline.
He鈥檚 referring to the Air Launcher, a contraption designed by NASA to trigger
controlled avalanches with high explosives. Modified to shoot concrete-filled
cans, it can now be operated remotely via the Internet. Operators from as far
afield as Germany and Tokyo have successfully fired the launcher in San
Francisco.
With names such as The Unexpected Destruction of Elaborately Engineered
Artifacts, SRL鈥檚 shows seem to subvert the pretensions of high-tech and high
art. So is it art, socio-political satire or just geeks messing about with
bombs? Mark Van Proyen of the San Francisco Art Institute considers the work 鈥渁
theatrical event鈥攁 provocative sculpture of a brutal cast鈥�. But Pauline
himself doesn鈥檛 much care for such labels. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 in my interest to say it鈥檚
art, I have no qualms about saying it鈥檚 art,鈥� he admits with a shrug. 鈥淚t鈥檚 only
for convenience.鈥�
His real aim, he says, is to groom the human race to face the inevitable.
鈥淔itting into society is not just about fitting into a culture of humans, it鈥檚
about fitting into a culture of technology,鈥� he says. Cutting loose 15 crazed
cyborgs in central Tokyo just for fun is simply his way of helping people adjust
to the chaos of everyday life. 鈥淧eople have to learn to deal with the craziness.
It turns the city into what it should be鈥攁 jungle.鈥�