Guinea pigs, shotguns, and sex robots: the 80s art cult that weaponized chaos.
Documentation of three Survival Research Laboratories events, 1983-1984. Meet Stu, the SRL guinea pig, and see him training to operate the 4-legged Walking Machine, see 10-barrel shotguns, hear the "Stairway to Hell".
Practical Effects
Real machines that breathe fire and genuinely want to kill.
Sound
"Stairway to Hell" — not the Zeppelin song, somehow worse.
Direction
Grimy 16mm footage that feels illegal just to possess.
Director
Joe Rees
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
SRL pioneered the 'machine performance' genre, directly inspiring later robot combat shows and Burning Man's destructive aesthetic. Mark Pauline still operates today, minus several fingers.
Monte Cazazza coined the term 'industrial music' and his presence here bridges SRL to Throbbing Gristle's sonic terrorism. The 'Stairway to Hell' was a literal stairway rigged to explode.
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