Happy Birthday Survival Research Laboratories! The SRL team are much worshipped celebs on the machine scene, operating as a collective of "creative technicians" who get together with their tech pets to perform amazing feats which sound an awful lot like Mortal Kombat fatalities (Flame Tornado? Hand O God? The Mumbly Peg Stabber ???).

Each performance consists of a unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots and special effects devices, employed in developing themes of socio-political satire. Humans are present only as audience or operators.

And today, SRL turns 30! To celebrate, we went through the SRL archives to bring you the machines not only most adept at "socio-politial satire" but also the most adept at making the humans geek out and/ or COWER. MORTAL KOMBAT -- test your might.

• Kevin Binkert's Flame Tornado!

• The Shockwave Cannon

• Hand O God

• The Spark Shooter

• The Shaker

• The Inchworm

• The Screw Machine

• The Bomb Loader and Mr. Satan Head

• The Subjugator

• The Mumbly Peg Stabber

• link:// SRL
• via:// Boing Boing