Survival Research Labs - SRL is an art project started in 1978 by Mark Pauline and collaborators. They built large robots, usually powered by automobile engines running hydraulics with destructive capabilities, and staged theatrical performances of them in public. The performances were dangerous, though I don't think an audience member was ever injured.
Pauline had worked building military equipment in his early career. One interpretation of SRL is as critical commentary on our use of science, technology and industry for destructive ends.
SRL exchanged members with other cultural explorers such as the Suicide Club, the Cacophony Society, Seemen in the 1970's to '90's San Francisco Bay Area.
The performances are much rarer, and Pauline-SRL has moved from underground, to art group-institution sponsorship, to the gallery.
This is art work, but au courant as AI & robots mate with military & industrial uses today.
Performances are documented in video. Perhaps you can imagine the audience risk.
The NYT covered it with some great quotes: www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/arts/design/mark-pauline-survival-research-laboratories.html as does this short doc www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dcg9MpNYuc.
The show, Inconsiderate fantasies of negative acceleration characterized by sacrifices of a non-consensual nature www.marlboroughcontemporary.com/exhibitions/survival-research-laboratories, opens at Marlborough Contemporary 545 West 25th Street, New York, NY. Free
