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25-502: SRL was started in San Francisco in 1978 by Mark Pauline. Critics drew parallels between the group's founding and the punk and industrial music scenes of San Francisco at the time. The group's name is a parody of corporate culture. Pauline said that "the vision for SRL was always about creepy, scary, violent and extreme performances that really captured the feeling of machines as living things". SRL's early collaborators included

50-654: A book published by Last Gasp . In 2013, a digitized collection of the San Francisco chapter's Rough Draft newsletters was uploaded to the Internet Archive . Originating in 1991, the Los Angeles chapter listed events in their monthly newsletter Tales from the Zone . After mailing out physical monthly newsletters for several years, they switched to an online newsletter format. The events produced by

75-635: A group of subscribers to the defunct society's email discussion list became active under the Cacophony Society aegis. This resurgence followed a mock Pigeon Roast organized by a fictitious group called "Bay Area Rotisserie Friends" in San Francisco's Union Square in 2000, proposed by Drunken Consumptive Panda. In 2013, Kevin Evans, Carrie Galbraith and John Law co-authored Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society ,

100-474: A half dozen other countries. Between 2003 and 2006, and in 2008, "Sant' Arctica" was held at McMurdo Station , Antarctica . Many activities have been inspired by the Society, such as Pee-wee Herman Day (commemorating Actor Paul Reubens ' arrest in a pornographic theater). Flash mob activities have been influenced by the Society, as well as groups like Improv Everywhere . The Society also has links to

125-429: A hovercraft, and a shockwave cannon. SRL has received serious consideration as not only a pioneer of industrial performance art, but also as a legitimate heir to the traditions of Dada and the art of Jean Tinguely in which paradoxical creations are used to call into question the state and direction of technological society. In addition, many SRL members were later involved in other avant-garde artistic projects like

150-619: A safety consciousness organization, The Art of Bleeding , along with several members of the Los Angeles chapter. In 2008, the Los Angeles chapter was revived by San Francisco members Heathervescent and Rev. Borfo with Michael Mikel's blessing. They have since continued to sponsor events. In December 1993, the Seattle Chapter held a protest event called "Uncan the Cranberries" at a shopping mall, where Cacophony members asked

175-745: A shock wave cannon, a 4-legged walking machine, a high power flame thrower, a radio-controlled tank and a 1,200-pound catapult. The show was sponsored by the New York City arts groups The New Museum , Creative Time , and The Kitchen . In 1989 the group presented Illusions of Shameless Abundance in San Francisco. The show, staged in the SOMA area under an on-ramp to the Bay Bridge , featured stacks of burning pianos, vats of spoiled food, and flame-breathing robots. The show's use of fake sculptures resembling high explosive devices led to beach closures and

200-454: Is a US-based organization that consists of individuals "united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society." In 1986, the organization was created by the surviving members of the defunct Suicide Club of San Francisco . Cacophony events, which may be sponsored by any member, often involve wearing costumes, performing pranks in public places, and urban exploring . Formed in 1986, some members became organizers of

225-547: The Cacophony Society , the Suicide Club , The Haters , Robochrist Industries , People Hater, Seemen, Burning Man , and robotics projects including Battlebots and Robot Wars . SRL has been praised as being a place where many women have access to working with robotics and advanced machine workshop tools. In 1982 Pauline lost two fingers from his right hand while attempting to make solid rocket fuel. Due to

250-504: The 1989 San Francisco show Illusions of Shameless Abundance SRL was banned in 2011 from performing in the city by the San Francisco Fire Department . The sound of 1991 test in San Francisco of a homemade V-1 rocket engine resulted in police attention and a reported 300 calls to the city's earthquake hotline. In 2007 SRL crew member Todd Blair suffered a serious brain injury during the take-down of an SRL show at

275-744: The Atomic Café, the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, the picnic on the Golden Gate Bridge , driving an earthquake-damaged car on the closed Embarcadero Freeway to commemorate the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake , the Brides of March , Urban Iditarod, and the Sewer Walk. After a lull in activity in the San Francisco chapter in the late 1990s and the cessation of the chapter's monthly newsletter, Rough Draft ,

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300-400: The Los Angeles branch often centered on public pranking with several historical events, including "Cement Cuddles" where they filled a dozen teddy bears with cement and put them on toy store shelves complete with bar-coded labels. The Los Angeles group splintered in late 2000 when longtime leader, Al "Reverend Al" Ridenour, pranked the society itself and declared a "bold new direction" for

325-464: The Los Angeles concrete river to the east, the 1st street bridge to the north, the 4th street bridge to the south. Attendees were required to sign a waiver before admission. The group performed The Misfortunes of Desire (Acted Out at an Imaginary Location Symbolizing Everything Worth Having) in 1988 in the parking lot of Shea Stadium in Queens, New York . Using 22 tons of equipment the show included

350-727: The Robodock Arts & Technology Festival in Amsterdam . Punk rock in California Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 219920442 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:53:21 GMT Cacophony Society The Cacophony Society

375-495: The Society in his writings, particularly in the book Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon . Palahniuk used the Society as the inspiration for the fictional organization Project Mayhem in his novel Fight Club . Palahniuk himself was pranked by a group of members disguised as waiters at one of his book readings in San Francisco. Cacophony chapters are or have been active in about two dozen American cities and at least

400-472: The annual Burning Man event. The move came after Cacophony member Michael Mikel attended the event's previous iteration, the unnamed Memorial Day beach party to raise and burn the Man on Baker Beach , in 1988 and publicized the 1989 event in the Cacophony Society newsletter. In 1990, Carrie Galbraith and Kevin Evans conceived of Zone Trip #4 and organized it with John Law and Michael Mikel. They publicized

425-537: The annual Burning Man festival. Eventually, the Burning Man organizers banned their guns. The Black Rock City Post Office (BRCPO), which sends US postal mail from the Burning Man festival with a unique BRCPO postmark arranged with the US Postmaster, is still managed by PDX Cacophony associates. One of the most widely known Cacophony members is Novelist Chuck Palahniuk, who has mentioned his experiences with

450-456: The branch by allegedly joining an Orthodox Christian community out of guilt over the deaths of two young members who reportedly died in a drunken post-event car accident. However, one of the men eventually turned out to be completely fictitious and the other, Peter "Mr. Outer Space" Geiberger, was discovered to be alive. In Spring 2001, Ridenour stepped down as leader of the chapter. In 2005, Reverend Al resurfaced as Dr. A.P. Ridenour, leader of

475-465: The event in the Society newsletter as "A Bad Day at Black Rock". Larry Harvey and Jerry James, who had previously run the Baker Beach party, co-founded the Burning Man festival when they were invited to bring their effigy along for the new Labor Day weekend art festival after they had been blocked from burning it on the beach by law enforcement. The Society was also involved in such events as

500-693: The involvement of the city's bomb squad the next day. The group produced the 1995 show Crime Wave in San Francisco. Their 1996 show in Phoenix titled Survival Research Laboratories Contemplates a Million Inconsiderate Experiments , featured robots, flame throwers, and a V-1 jet engine . In 1997 SRL staged The Unexpected Destruction of Elaborately Engineered Artifacts in Austin, Texas. In 2006 they performed Ghostly Scenes of Infernal Desecration in San Jose, California . The performance featured an air launcher,

525-525: The machine artists including Matt Heckert and Eric Werner. Heckert's work in the group centered on the acoustic and musical parts of performance. He left the group in 1988 to follow his musical interests. After about 30 years in San Francisco, SRL moved to Petaluma, California in 2008. As of late 2023, SRL has conducted over 120 shows throughout the world, mostly in the western United States. SRL shows are essentially performance art installations acted out by machines rather than people. The interactions between

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550-573: The machines have been characterized as "noisy, violent, and destructive". A frequent tag-line on SRL literature is "Producing the most dangerous shows on Earth." A side-effect of the group's activities is frequent interactions with governmental and legal authorities. Their performances are also given colorfully elaborate names as a comment on bureaucratically generated research projects & papers, such as A Calculated Forecast of Ultimate Doom: Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement. The first SRL show

575-438: The public to "save the free-range cranberry". Another Cacophony member asked the "adult children of parents" to avoid "dysfunction and substance abuse" by staying home and avoiding family gatherings. By the mid-1990s, the Cacophony Society had expanded to Portland, Oregon. In 1996, Portland Cacophony organized the first Santa Rampage outside of San Francisco. The arrival of the members dressed like Santa, who flew in by plane,

600-942: Was Machine Sex on February 25, 1979. The event featured a device called The Demanufacturing Machine which "demanufactured" objects by shredding them and flinging them toward the audience. The 1982 show A Cruel and Relentless Plot to Pervert the Flesh of beasts to Unholy Uses integrated machines with objects such as mummified and dissected animals and a robot that was part metallic dog, part cadaver. In August 11, 1985 8pm, at 330 Santa Fe Ave., Los Angeles SLR performed "Extremely Cruel Practices: A series of events designed to instruct those interested in policies that correct or punish". Billed as : LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) and ANTICLUB present: A Machine Performance by Survival Research Laboratories / Mark Pauline and Matt Heckert, assisted by Eric Werner, Neal Pauline, and Monte Cazazza. Performed at an abandoned train depot lot, situated with

625-655: Was met by Portland police in riot gear, following a tip-off from the San Francisco Police Department. However, the activities resulted in only two arrests, which involved a gift wrapped in a Playboy centerfold being given to a recipient without verifying that they were over 18. For several years, Portland Cacophony was responsible for the Disgruntled Postal Workers, a group of armed individuals in postal uniforms who occasionally delivered newspapers and other forms of "mail" at

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