Chinatown is Burning

Survival Research Labratories decended upon Chung King court in Chinatown on saturday and the public didn't know what hit them.

Although the word was kept on the downlow, a sizable crowd of freaks and artsy types managed to make it out for SRL's latest exhibition of apocalyptic hijinx.

Having never made it to Chung King Row before, it took Jenny and I a while to find the venue....tucked back from the street a bit and just near the entrance to the 110. In an effort to take our search on by foot we parked in the 3floor parking lot used when visiting Empress Pavillion. This ended up being a perfect guess. The demonstration was just across the street.

Jenny and I walked over to a slowly growing crowd in a blocked off parking lot. We discovered that the show would not start until 8, which for us was a little late, for we had other places to be. But we decided to mull around the galleries and wait for what I knew may be my only chance to see SRL, a crew I've followed since college.

The gallery that was hosting the show has large format photographs of SRL's last LA performance as well as film and video in the basement. Many people in "Security" uniforms were chugging beer which made me feel good. We also meandered around the streets doing some window shopping. We came upon a shop called Flux that housed an impressive array of handmade pottery. We made a note to return when it was open.

As the crowd grew bigger, Jenny worried about not being able to see (she being of a petit stature), so we actually hoofed it back to the parking lot we had left, which provided a perfect arial view. Next to us were a couple who had brought a gaggle of neighborhood kids to watch the festivities. Perched on the back of a truck bed and noshing on egg rolls it looked like a fun friday for the kids. The couple just happened (as luck would have it) to own the Flux shop we had just been oggling over. A super nice couple whose names i now forget, we chatted for a while and assured them we would make it for a showing of Adam Silvermans Atwater Pottery that will be occuring in March.

Finally, the show went off. Although some claim that it wasn't up to par with previous events, it exceeded my expectations for a show in such a public space. Lots of fire, lots of noise, lots of machines clanging with machines, and evidentally lots of dead fish. As many have said, its really impossible to describe; photo's and even video can't really do it justice. The space being just off the 110, I was sure the show was going to cause an accident from all the rubber kneckers. And despite my suggestion, several people brought their kids, and their demonic clowns, and their rubber booted techno-goths. So the hilites machine wise were a walking quadroped robot that accosted the crowd, exploding barrels of dead fish, and a screaming hover-craft. Check the link at the top to discover some pictures and video for I flaked and didn't manage to bring my camera.

The show continued for about 15-20 minutes and the fire department never showed up, which might be a first for these guys as well.

Get yourself down to the Fringe gallery for a sampling of previous shows and to see some of the machines out of the display context, then kick yourself for not making it to this event.