Survival Research Lab Turns 30

If you don't know about Mark Pauline and SRL, you should.


Image by Garth Webb

In 1990, at Art Futura in Barcelona, I got to attend the conference by being an "aide to SRL". While I did very little to help them, it was fascinating watching them up close as they prepared for a performance. It was at this conference that I formally met William Gibson, among others. It has been a touchstone in my life, as well as for many other artists in the tech field. It is amazing how many times over the last two decades that I have met some astounding pioneering artists who attended that particular Art Futura.

One of the most telling moments was when a lot of us were drinking at the Universal Bar and watching art videos on the TVs around the bar. At some point the screens started showing bomb POV shots as they fell to their targets. Lots of things started blowing up. We thought it must be an SRL performance video. Turns out it was CNN's coverage of the start of the first Gulf War as Bush Senior bombed Baghdad. Very surreal discussing how smart bombs must work with Bill Gibson while surrounded by the exotically beautiful Amazonian barmaids dancing to pulsing Euro-dance music.

Viking Youth Power Hour Review of Witch House

Those horror fiends at the Viking Youth Power Hour wrote about their experience at The Dreams in the Witch House. Here are some choice excerpts:

"This past weekend I spent one of the more enjoyable Saturday night’s I’ve had in Chicago in some time at our city’s resident 'Horror Theatre' experts newest production, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 'The Dreams in the Witch House.'

'Witch House' tells the story of a young mathematics genius with a mysterious past, Walter Gilman, taking to school at the infamous Miskatonic University. Before our fated hero can even unpack his bags he’s beset by terrible omens, rat faced humans, odd foreigners, and troubling dreams encouraging geometry as a means to a rather inhabited fourth dimension. By the end of the show we’ve been treated to spirit possession, incest, baby pies, glowing pentagrams, an awesome chameo from an Old One, plenty of madness and witchery and enough murder to keep that old impotent cunt Dick Cheney horny for a week. In short, it’s a delicious trollop through the highest roads of horror's greatest riffs.

The performances were great as well... But what sets Wildclaw apart from other theatre groups is that they aren’t just pursuing art by way of theatre, they’re pursuing theatre by way of Horror. And this love of the wicked permeates every aspect of the show.

(Y)ou’d be fool to miss the WildClaw Theatre’s production of 'The Dreams in the Witch House'."

For the full review, check it out here.

Killer-works Review of The Dreams in the Witch House

"The Dreams in the Witch House is spectacular, in the old school, carnival funhouse sense of the word.

Do you like your theatre eerie, gory and surprisingly witty? Enjoy your protagonists pale and plagued by witches? Your good guys questionable (to say the least), and your bad guys such gibbering maniacs that the word "bad" no longer applies? The Dreams in the Witch House has it all. Plus The Necronomicon. Which is just cool. "
C.S.E. Cooney - Killer-works.com

Arkham Awaits

Big begins building

Today we erected the set for H. P. Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch House at the Athenaeum Theater. Tech week has officially started. Platforms have been hoisted, screws tightened, paint flung. We open next Sunday, November 16th and run through December 21st.

Get your tickets now for WildClaw's most ambitious show. Centerstage has already called it a Must-See Show and Fangoria is telling you to obey that impulse and see it.

Here's what they said about WildClaw's The Great God Pan earlier this year:

"If this is the WildClaw standard for horror, we’ll gladly be horrified again"
-TimeOut Chicago

"Fantastically executed"
-Killer_works.com

"It delivers the guts and gore you crave and you may actually get blood splattered on you"
-The Chicagoist

"Spooky fun in the vein of the classic Hammer Films thrillers of the 1950s and '60s"
-Chicago Reader

You probably heard that Deathscribe was a blast. So what are you waiting for? Arkham awaits.

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