SMILEs all 'round! Defense Program Update

Good news! If only the Director was here to witness the great leap forward that our defense program, something that I have long championed in the face of some determined conservative resistance, has made.*1 I've sent a telegram to her last known location (Bora-Bora, as it happens), but frankly I have little hope that she will receive it. In the event, the obvious next step was to broadcast a general media release.Please feel free to distribute the information below as widely as possible.

MEDIA RELEASE
Museum of Dust is proud to announce that its SMILE*2 Program has recently showed significant progress.

MoD's crack team of Slimes has cracked the mobility issue and produced a prototype slime-controlled all-terrain vehicle.

Although the six-legged machine (aka 'robot') can, at this stage, only be controlled by team scaredy-mould Physarum polycephalum, the next stage of development will see modifications that will make the machine driveable by any slime.

Image: Klaus-Peter Zauner

The deployment of, ultimately, millions of the vehicles will ensure Museum of Dust's border security for now and the foreseeable future.

As some territorially offensive would-be empires*3 have found to their cost, we have crack troops of some of the fastest moving and most voracious slime moulds know to humankind. This innovation will make them not only faster but also capable of carrying a modern payload.

Of course, WE only ever intend to use them for peaceful purposes, but their sheer technological sophistication and their capability to wreck catastrophic damage should give the most confident invader pause for thought.

For more on our research partners (What, you didn't think the slimes came up with this all by themselves, did you?! Sure, they're smart -- but they have problems with complex tool manipulation.)
Robot moved by a slime mould's fears >

Background to the program: Intelligent Slime

For more background >

*1 Yes Yes YES. So the program WAS initiated by Inky-Blinky. Your point is?
*2 Slime Mould Intelligence Leap Enterprise
*3 Yes, it IS Republic of Tinselman I'm talking about!

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Putting animals to work

A reasonable person might presume that the Director would be happy with news of the overwhelming success of the previously mentioned Anatomy of Monsters.

Obviously reasonable people are in short supply around the museum in these dark days.

As an obviously unreasonable person, I expect nothing.

And luckily, as not a word have I received regarding the triumph of the new exhibit. Not a syllable! Not a solitary alphanumeric character!

Instead, we* are simply swamped with a superfluity of animal corpses in various states of dismemberment originating from various parts of the world. Not a word about what the Director might want done with the various animal parts she has dumped on us. Not an inkling as to why she might have acquired them in the first place. I can't even store the bits and bobs and wait until she returns -- the Oubliette is already brimfull to overflowing.

With my usual genius for organisation, I have, naturally, found a solution. I will have the animal corpses built into useful objects. I have already received the first shipments of commissions back. I was surprised at just how willing these young people are to do what it takes to get a chance in the world. They have transformed our unwanted carnage into useful objects that would grace any home or museum.

Miss Pokeno, (a fellow once-New Zealander and 80s pop star, so uncannily like myself that I had to doublecheck that she isn't just me moonlighting...) for instance, has transformed a useless limp dead bird into a very comfortable chaise lounge. I await her set of fox-stuffed armchairs with great anticipation.


I'm thinking of matching them with the sets of both fox and coyote pillows . Idiots have also looked at the bird/furniture combo -- This Seat is Taken indeed!


Atlason have transformed an annoying flock of sheep into useful stools...
Sarah Garzoni's chesterfield pig will make a great addition to the Boudoir:
But she gets extra points for the very fine swiss army knife (Homo Faber) she slipped into my hand on her way out.
Smaller furnishing items have not been overlooked either: Moooi have ponied up with a Horse Lamp:
Sebastian Errazuriz with a Duck lamp (Now if someone could just make a spider lamp, I'd be REALLY excited)
Carlee Fernandez's clothes basket Lola Isern will come in very handy

This is, of course, just the beginning! I'll keep you posted about new pieces of furniture as they arrive -- although I'll be rather busy for the next while researching Victorian taxidermy furniture...

Consultants on this element of the Museum's activities include:
Quigley's Cabinet's article on taxidermy furniture >
Crappy Taxidermy has an endless parade of stuffed goodness >

* And when I say 'we' I mean, of course, 'me' The rest of MoD's staff seem to have evaporated about the time that we stopped receiving any kind of regular paychecks. I haven't seen anyone from Janitorial for months and even that vicious little sneak Inky-Blinky has been very quiet. I have to admit that, as long as he spins his webs and organises his own collections well out of my way, I'd be happy to never see him again.

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Dust to Dust

It has been several months since the Director left on an extended exhibit-finding trip (or, at least, that's what she said she was doing). We haven't heard a word from her although, from time to time, something turns up addressed in what seems to be her hand.

Now, I'm not one to complain and I pride myself on my consummate professionalism, but it has been very hard to maintain standards around the museum with no direction or resources. It's all very well for Ms de Plume to send back the occasional box of fragments... but would it kill her to label them? Provide some documentation? Even just tell me what the hell they are? Or what she wants done with them?

But I struggle on.

Don't get me started on the quality of "staff" she left me saddled with either... a brace of mangy and uncontrollable spongecats and their supposed keeper and Minister of Defense, Inky-Blinky who, if truth be told, I haven't seen hair nor legs of in the last year. I have to do EVERYTHING! It's as much as I can do to keep up with feeding the spongecats and keeping the place open -- although I have to admit that she was right about the marketing and promotions. Not doing any has really seen visitations drop off... which is just as well, because if I was running the ticket office, I simply wouldn't be able to get anything else done.

Of course I was beginning to worry slightly about the dust... Dust in exhibits is all very well and proper, but the drifts have been piling up in the corners and under the furniture. It was beginning to be difficult to tell the human skin fragments apart from the diatoms or the butterfly scales. Luckily, I have found a solution that should provide a win-win solution all round.

I've invited a young fellow called Paul Hazelton to pop-over. He is a dust fiend. A particulate fanatic. Better (or worse, depending on your perspective), he's an artist. He makes sculptures from dust using a secret and patented method. Hazelton transforms piles of dust into... shaped piles of dust.

His themes are appropriate to the Museum... and appropriately meta-textual. Here's some examples.

Being and Nothingness

Vacancy

See what I mean?!

Dust mask

In return for his entire creative output I have agreed to allow him access to selected piles of our dust*. He seems to be appropriately pathetically grateful for the opportunity.

By the time that Director de Plume returns we should have a fine collection. I'm thinking of turning over a wing of the museum to it -- and, in recognition of my sheer genius, calling it the 'Administrative Dust Show'.

What happens if the Director disagrees? I hear you say. Of course I've got a fallback plan -- I've acquired one of Hazelton's earlier works (below) and already have it packed and ready to go. I can be out of here in under a minute.

Carrier

More about David Hazelton's art here >
His Saatchi art site -- with many more egs here >

*Obviously NOT the diatoms or the insect scales! Imagine... The Director would have my guts for garters!

PS Mr Hazelton just dropped in with his first contribution to the new exhibit. I don't know that the Director is going to like it much, but I think that it is just fine. And that damned arachnid slacker can think what he likes....

A spider

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