SRL was recently banned from performing in San Francisco by the SF fire dept. In December 2011, Somarts, a local gallery venue,/arts support organization in the city asked SRL to participate in I am Crime, a show of artists who had been arrested for activities related to their work. The SRL participation was to have included an installation of one machine, the Spine Robot in the gallery and a one day street closure of Brannan Street between 8th and 9th for a short outdoor SRL event at the closing of the installation. The city of SF approved the street closure, but the SFFD, citing an SRL show from 1989, Illusions of Shameless Abundance stated that SRL would no longer be allowed to perform in San Francisco. This resulted in the outdoor show being called off by Somarts.

This is not the first time that the SFFD has been responsible for shows by SRL being banned both in San Francisco and elsewhere. In 1995 we were planning a show with Somarts that was funded by the BBC as part of a feature length documentary Pandemonium when the SFFD warned the then director of Somarts, Jack Davis, that any attempt to host an SRL event would result in the possible closure of Somarts. This was, according the to the SFFD representative, because SRL had ‘humiliated the SFFD in a prime time news segment that appeared on the Connie Chung show a few months earlier’. ( This was a co-production SRL did with CBS news on the Calculated Forecast of Ultimate Doom show staged at pier 70 in SF in 1994. It ended up on the Connie Chung show, co hosted by local news host Dana King and it dramatically played up the dangerous, out of control nature of SRL, and the inability of the fire dept to control the group, etc. )

SRL then staged the Crime Wave show in 1995 after which Mark Pauline and Mike Dingle were promptly arrested and questioned by local authorities and the FBI and later charged with arson and the use of explosives to endanger the public, the charges being directly filed by the SFFD top brass.

The DA at the time, Terrance Hallinan tried to have the charges dropped but in the end, due to pressure from the top brass at the SFFD, the court would not drop the charges and we had to plea bargain the charges down to arson. All this even though no damage or injuries resulted from this show, (or any other SRL show staged in or out of SF)

Later the SFFD directly or indirectly banned 3 more SRL events. One in Phoenix Arizona in 2000 when the SFFD heard of the show and contacted the Phoenix Fire dept to advise against allowing it to proceed. Then in 2005 in SF, at a large outdoor event at the Candlestick park parking lot, the SFFD intervened to insist that the audience remain at least 300 ft from the edge of the SRL event area, essentially leaving no space in the lot for the rest of the event to occur. Finally in 2006, SRL had a show in Las Vegas through the University of Las Vegas Gallery that was thwarted by the SFFD when the Las Vegas Fire Dept contacted the SFFD for a reference on SRL, received an earful and backed out.

SRL would love to perform our fantastic entertainment fantasies for the residents of SF but for now we remain, banned in San Fran.

-Mark Pauline

The word is out! Thanks Laughing Squid and BoingBoing for spreading the word!

Laughing Squid: SRL gets Banned in San Francisco by Rusty Blazenhoff

SRL: Banned in San Francisco by David Pescovitz

Video edited by Alan Kelley. More info, images, etc. of SRL at Under the Big Black Sun (California Art from 1974-1981)

Click on the link for a bigger version of the image

Apparently the de-manufacturing machine is a big draw for celebrities. Back in it’s debut run in 1979 at the Chevron gas station in San Francisco, Karen Finley, RE/Search’s V. Vale, and members of Throbbing Gristle were in the audience!

More images, press, videos of Under the Big Black Sun group exhibition at LA MOCA can be found here

If anyone has media to share and want to be credited/linked to the SRL site please let us know! (mail karen at this website)

Preparations for Under the Big Black Sun are underway. Please note that Mark will be operating the De-Manufacturing machine at the Members Only opening this Friday Sept 30 at LA Moca (the Geffen one). Normally memberships are about $60 (don’t quote us on that) but if you’re with a member you can get into the event and get a discount on membership ($25). The public opening is Oct 1. The machine will be on display but not running till Feb 2012.

Here’s Mark making one of the props. SRL props unplugged -no power tools, no large format printers:

Mark Pauline has been busy preparing for the LA MOCA exhibition Under the Big Black Sun with it’s public openingi on October 1. One of the props to be de-manufactured will be a circuit-bended, re-animated fish. This video shows the beginning of the prop-building process:

Here is the double dog and chicken prop that we’ll be modifying to re-animate dead chickens with: http://youtu.be/tYTstgfpwUE and http://youtu.be/4j66ohP-qFk. This one will be used to re-animate dead eels: http://youtu.be/rPVCXWWcf8U

For members of LA MOCA, there will be a members only opening on Sept 30.

Thanks to SRL pal David Pescovitz SRL was BoingBoing’d today. The post is about the SFMOMA groundbreaking in 1992.

For those in LA this October, SRL will be making another appearance at another museum. MOCA in LA for Under the Big Black Sun an exhibition showcasing the diversity of significant art from the mid to late 70s. October 1 2011 – February 13 2012. Mark Pauline will be bringing down and operating the very first SRL machine (De-manufacturing Machine) pictured here with the latest SRL machine the Spine Robot. David Pescovitz posts on BoingBoing as well: Machine Sex 2.0

Also Mark Pauline has been going through the SRL archives and re-editing/digitizing all the videos and putting them on YouTube. Find them here.

Mark Pauline, Bob Taylor prep the DeManufacturing machine for the MOCA exhibition:

Full video of SRL show Deliberate Evolution of a War Zone held at a toilet paper factory in Graz caused the Austrian military to go on high defense alert thinking the Serbs were attacking. This was in 1992 when the Serbs had just recently bombed nearby Vukovar. Note sproinging sound fx thanks to GX Jupiter-Larssen/Haters. Video shot and edited by Leslie Asako Gladsjo.

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Part 2:

Mark Pauline has updated another re-edited video from Carnival of Misplaced Devotion: Calculated to Arouse Resentment for the Principles of Order show in Seattle from 1990 in conjunction with COCA. Part of the “Pleasures of Uninhibited Excess” documentary. Directed and edited by Leslie Asako Gladsjo.

Another fine SRL show in a small enclosed space for extra added intimacy and intensity newly uploaded by Mark Pauline for your viewing pleasure. This was from the show at the Shipyard in Berkeley in 2001. Many thanks to Jim Mason for hosting! Video edited by Alan Kelley from footage by Dave Scardina and others.

Part 1:

Part 2:

“You wont get hurt. You’ll just get killed.” – Mark Pauline, 2001

The SFMOMA groundbreaking in 1992 actually featured SRL but you wont see that in their archives most likely. Downtown SF was shut down for approximately 15 minutes. Video shot and directed by Leslie Asako Gladsjo.