August 7, 2025

The From Below Microcinema will be returning to our shorts program: REAL LIFE ROBOTS: A Mechanical Ode to Uncanny Life for an encore screening on Thursday, August 7th at 8pm.

Here is the link to reserve a seat. Doors will be at 7:50 and we’re starting the movie at 8:10!

What does it mean for a robot to be onscreen? What do they reveal about life, animation, and the connections between the organic and industrial world? This is one of the questions we are hoping to explore in this program of short films that feature automatons, cyborgs, and machines in action. This isn’t movie magic– expect to see some real robots captured on video! Centralized around the work of Survival Research Laboratories, a Bay Area arts collective that put on apocalyptic performances of self-destructive robots starting in the 1980s, expect to see some of their performance footage and narrative films, alongside Rube Goldberg-esque creations, candid footage of malfunctioning machines, evil automotive-human hybrids, uncanny and surreal imitations of human life, and more! Part puppetry, part performance art, part outsider midnight movie, part video sculpture, the works featured in Real Life Robots simply must be seen to be believed.