Simultaneously a utopian research model, a reservoir of scientific lab equipment, a waste handling/reuse/storage dilemma, and, to varying degrees, an art project, the Universal Lab continues along its unique, hybrid trajectory. Since its inclusion in the Ecologies exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art in 2000, Excerpts from the Universal Lab has appeared in two prominent museum exhibitions; spent a year trapped in a U.S. Customs storage facility, where it narrowly escaped destruction; been the subject of a threatened lawsuit by its former landlords; and spent two additional years in a semi-trailer. The art world has played gracious host to the sprawling, rambling collection of matter that is at the core of this project but has not yet entirely gotten its arms around it. It seems to fit in catalogs, and briefly in large exhibition spaces, but not the storage lockers of permanent art collections. But the reluctance of art institutions and collectors to take that kind of plunge is understandable, and, I think, speaks to the heart of the matter.

It is the scale of the original collection that continues to energize Universal Lab. Within that enormity, a continual shift in polarities occurs between waste and resource value and valuelessness; historical relevance and triviality; sublime attraction to the senses; and grand annoyance. The Universal Lab has always felt like something larger than life, something that never should have existed at all, something utterly unregulated that grew quietly in the shadow of extreme regulation. It is the unlikely convergence of three things: the exaggerated, post-Manhattan Project, Cold War research budgets at the University of Chicago; human energy, measured in decades, dedicated to moving remains of those research budgets, around the clock, from point A to point B; and finally, abundant, nearby, affordable, unscrutinized warehouse space. The scale of each of these forces is what transformed the Universal Lab from a flawed, impoverished scientific research offshoot into something much more deeply, and humanly, compelling.

But it is this scale that has also fed the urgency behind uprooting it, evicting it, and, in the end, regulating it. The Universal Lab, in its current state, has been brought down to size. Rather than the negligent, hazardous, wholesale disposal process launched by its landlords in 2000, intervention by the Resource Center (a Chicago-based nonprofit) and volunteers over subsequent years has allowed for large amounts of its contents to be recycled, reused, or resold. In 2002 the University of Chicago stepped up and handled all radioactive materials with great care and concern, but after this brief period of cooperation it denied any obligation to address other hazardous materials. In 2003 the chemical inventory was at least partially identified and disposed of under professional supervision, at significant expense to the landlord. In early 2004, the 10,000 square feet of space that the lab had occupied since the 1960s was finally cleared, again at significant expense to the landlord. But this does not mark the end.

The semi-trailer load of materials from the Universal Lab had previously been drawn off from the main body. A rough estimate would place these excerpts at between one and two percent of the whole laboratory, and, other than the absent chemical stores, they are fairly representative of its contents. This roving, satellite collection, moving in and out of trucks, art museums, shipping containers, loading docks, and warehouses, has become the mother ship. As they continue to drift, shrink, and adapt to their condition of permanent mobility, the excerpts may hopefully, once again, find an anchor point from which to grow. In the meantime, the logistics of travel and storage are increasingly influencing their scale and shape. In this return orbit through the Smart Museum and other venues, as excerpt of excerpts, the process of further compartmentalization and streamlining will be evident.

Perhaps this is just a sign of fatigue. Hopefully, it's a sign of something more. I'd like to think that a latent survival mechanism of the Universal Lab is kicking in. Maybe it's here for good reason, once again knocking on the museum door, seeking asylum, near the nurturing loading docks that first gave it life.