Robot costume, Barcelona, Spain

During my winter in Europe in 1990, I made a fabric wrapping for a robotic stage prop in a Survival Research Laboratories performance. (I also created the faux marble behind the robot).

I made a stencil with a piece of paneling and a jigsaw.
The stencil looked something like this:


A scan of the piece of fabric I saved from the flames.

 

With big swab-like brushes, first the base color was applied and then spattered with a lighter color. Then I moved the stencil into the next position and repeated the process, until I covered about 17 yards of fabric.

 

Here's the fabric drying. Note the five gallon paint buckets and the cuff fabric at the near end.

Here's the robot with it's maker, Kirk (?), and the creator of SRL, Mark Pauline (left). The machine was able to open and close its arms and rotate on its base, which could also roll. The right hand held a bucket of flaming, smoking coals, the left hand a barbed flail.

The fabric sections were stapled together forming sleeves, cuffs, a gown with wide cuff, and a collar, which were burned to cinders by flame throwers during the climax of the performance, as was planned.

Visit http://www.srl.org/ to learn more about Survival Research Laboratories.

 

 

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