or nearly twenty years, Survival Research Laboratories has staged elaborate mechanized spectacles in the name of theatre --conceptual art played out by lovingly-created mechanical mutants. The main players -- the machines of SRL -- combine heavy industrial machinery and "reappropriated" military machinery with cutting-edge robotics technology. Weapons of war and industrial production are disassembled and remade into primal nightmares of the Industrial Revolution.

Currently a loose conglomeration of technological artists and craftspeople, SRL started out as the brainchild of Mark Pauline, the artistic director and ringleader of the group. Since his first machine show in 1979, Pauline and his SRL compatriots -- a creative band of machinists, mechanics, welders, and other technical specialists -- have used their elaborate creations to critique American consumer and military culture in over 50 shows worldwide.

Understandably, the scale and explosive nature of the group's art has earned them a reputation among counterculture artists and local fire officials alike. Previous spectacles -- including the secretly-hatched 1995 "Crime Wave" show -- have resulted in legal action against the group and a de facto moratorium of SRL shows in their home base of San Francisco.

But a like-minded group of artists, the Austin-based Robot Group, lobbied SRL to stage a show in Texas. After months of negotiations, SRL finally worked out the logistics -- including shipping 50 tons of tools and equipment -- and scheduled a show for March 28th at the Longhorn Speedway outside Austin. The invasion had begun.