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“The good Lord sets definite limits on man’s wisdom but sets no limits on his stupidity — and that’s just not fair.” –Konrad Adenauer, German Chancellor (1876-1967)
On a mild, fall evening in 1997, 5,000 people sat motionless and completely quiet as the red flare lofted into the air, popped, and rained down on the figure-eight racing track.
Then, as midnight approached, three gigantic remote-controlled robots roared to life with a sound that blew the gates of hell completely off their hinges. Over the next 45 minutes the Big Arm, the V-1 Rocket and the Shock Wave Cannon roamed the landscape of the Longhorn Speedway in Austin, Texas, while a four-story replica of the 307-foot University of Texas tower burned to the ground.
The tower — made famous when Charles Whitman climbed onto the observation level in 1966, opened fire, and killed 14 people in a 90-minute rampage — was the centerpiece for the modern-day theater put on by the Survival Research Laboratories.
Mark Pauline — SRL’s leader — likes to make people uncomfortable not only with his choice of images but also with huge fireballs, loud noises and exploding metal.
“He’s trying to create a strong message about fear,” said Dr. Ken Goldberg, an associate professor of robotics at the University of California at Berkeley. “That’s what Mark is doing, igniting fear in the audience, with flying metal.”
While the use of what has become known as “Whitman’s tower” might be offensive to the sensibilities of the locals, what has consistently gotten Pauline in trouble over his 23-year career is his penchant for creating large, potentially lethal robots under the guise of modern performance art.
His group was recently banned from Japan after unveiling the pitching machine — a device with two rotating tires and the end of a funnel, which normally throws baseballs and softballs, that now hurls two-by-fours at 150 mph.
Just hours before the Austin Fire Marshall would run Pauline and his merry group of 60 out of town for violations — such as shooting 20-foot walls of flame toward hundreds of people, setting off rockets, and creating a general disturbance, the man stood silent — his mission accomplished.
He watched the fires burn down, the robots crash into each other, and the onlookers clamor for the exits, unsure of what they had just witnessed. The next day, his crew began packing up what remained of their equipment before heading back home — to San Francisco.
“I never get asked to come back again,” Pauline said. 
Hear Audio Excerpt.
Pauline has been banned from American cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, and of course, Austin. But the numerous banishments aren’t limited to American cities. Entire countries — Japan and Spain for instance — have politely asked Pauline and SRL never to return.
Pauline has a felony arson conviction hanging over his head after being arrested for, what else, blowing things up. For the most part, Pauline said his organization avoided trouble because there are no laws to govern what they do. Hear Audio Excerpt.
Most people would never think to make a “hurricane of fire” by molding five jet engines into a circle.
The jets have about 130 pounds of thrust apiece, so when they are turned on, they create a stationary tornado with wind speeds up to 300 mph. Gas then gets shot into the wind, where it is ignited creating, well, a hurricane of fire. Hear Audio Excerpt.
“I don’t think people get many visceral experiences these days,” Pauline said. “Humans are made to have extreme experiences. They are landmarks in your life.”
What he is depends on who you talk with. Robot enthusiasts and underground subculture fanatics believe he’s a genius. Authorities believe he is dangerous.
That debate probably won’t be settled. The only definite — and ironic — fact both sides can agree on is that Pauline’s trade, building machines, is called fabricating.
From very early on, he tinkered with machines out of necessity. His mother and father weren’t well off, so if he wanted a car or a boat so he could hang out with his friends, he had to buy something cheap and fix it up.
That love of creation followed him to Eckerd College in Florida where he studied literature and theater. The fusion of fabrication, theater and literature formed the genesis of what would eventually become SRL. But Pauline still had some unfulfilled desires to deal with.
In the mid-seventies, Pauline joined the guerilla movement to free billboards. The group was spearheaded by the Billboard Liberation Front with the goal of subverting advertising messages on the sides of roads or hung from shop displays.
While he gained some notoriety for his work, Pauline’s mind was now locking in on Survival Research Laboratories, which would debut at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1978.
The early years were a bit tough on the pocketbook for Pauline, who hasn’t held a regular job since 1982. But the dot-com boom — and subsequent bust — provided him with more than enough money to continue. Like many people, he made some money in stocks. But the real money has come from reselling old equipment for tech firms looking to dump their hardware.
Today, Pauline continues to build new machines, preparing for his next show.
His most recent mini-show ended prematurely when the San Francisco Fire Department shut it down. It’s a trend that has Pauline a little frustrated. Since December, he’s been offering to perform his regular show at no cost. That’s quite a discount from the normal $25,000 price tag attached with SRL shows.
So far, there have been no takers.
Pauline has no worries about the future of the shows. He never worries. Because he knows that someone will always come back for more.
“Eventually, somebody will get tired of ordinary shows, and they will help us out,” Pauline said.
