"They're Made Out of Meat" is a short story by American writer Terry Bisson. It was originally published in '' OMNI''. It consists entirely of

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...

between two characters. Bisson's website hosts a theatrical adaptation. A film adaptation won the Grand Prize at the Seattle Science Fiction Museum's 2006 film festival. The story was collected in the 1993

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

Bears Discover Fire "Bears Discover Fire" is a science fiction short story by American science fiction author Terry Bisson.

and Other Stories'', and has circulated widely on the Internet, which Bisson finds "flattering". It has been quoted in

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

, cosmological, and philosophical scholarship.

Plot

The two characters are intelligent beings capable of traveling

faster than light Faster-than-light (also FTL, superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero ...

, on a mission to "contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe." Bisson's stage directions represent them as "two lights moving like fireflies among the stars" on a

projection screen A projection screen is an installation consisting of a surface and a support structure used for displaying a projected image for the view of an audience. Projection screens may be permanently installed, as in a movie theater; painted on the ...

. One of them tells the incredulous other about the recent discovery of carbon-based lifeforms "made up entirely of meat". After conversing briefly about it, they both deem such beings and communication with them too bizarre and agree to "erase the records and forget the whole thing", marking the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

"unoccupied".

Film adaptations

''They're Made out of Meat'' (2005)

In 2005, Stephen O'Regan wrote and directed a live film adaptation starring Tom Noonan and

Ben Bailey Benjamin Ray Bailey (born October 30, 1970) is an American comedian. He is best known for hosting the Emmy Award-winning game show ''Cash Cab'' in New York City. Early life Bailey was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and raised in Chatham Bor ...

. The film was made as a final project for the

New York Film Academy New York Film Academy – School of Film and Acting (NYFA) is a private for-profit film school and acting school based in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami. The New York Film Academy was founded in 1992 by Jerry Sherlock, a former film, t ...

. The main action takes place inside of a diner on Staten Island, NY full of teenagers. The music for the film was scored by Bob Reynolds.

''They're Made out of Meat'' (2010)

Jeff Frumess and Trevor Scott produced a version in 2010. They added the character of a homeless conspiracy theorist with an original score by musician Sam Belkin. The film was shot at the Hartsdale train platform on the Metro North in Westchester, NY.

''Meat'' (2021)

Masha Maksimova developed a version in Cinemiracle format, a triple split-screen process, as a student project at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences in the communication design course. The dialogue is conducted by two telepathic humanoid aliens and the thoughts are visualised by found-footage collages.

References

{{Reflist

External links

- the text of the short story
"They're Made Out of Meat"
- Terry Bisson's text copy
A directory of 10+ short film adaptations from 2006 on2012 production as a radio play
(WNYC) 1991 short stories Fiction about artificial intelligence Brain–computer interfacing in fiction Science fiction comedy Fiction portraying humans as aliens Short stories adapted into films Short stories by Terry Bisson Science fiction theatre Works originally published in Omni (magazine)