Dutch artist who turned dead cat into drone hopes to make badger submarine

He has already done the unthinkable with his dead cat, an ostrich, a rat and a shark. Now Dutch artist Bart Jansen is back with something equally bizarre.

The now infamous Orvillecopter.

WHEN Dutch artist Bart Jansen lost his beloved cat in 2012, he dealt with his grief in a unique way.

Feeling it would be a shame to bury his pet, he transformed his late moggy into a drone — a fitting tribute to a cat that was named Orville Wright, after the Wright brothers.

After making international headlines with his creation, the OrvilleCopter, the artist came under fire from animal cruelty advocates.

“People keep on saying it’s animal cruelty, but my cat was already dead and I didn’t kill him,” Jansen told Mirror Online.

“I really was sad, but that didn’t stop me from making a completely absurd monument.”

Following the intrigue of his first project, Jansen took on a much bigger project … literally.

With a similar treatment given to his feline friend, the artist took a 21kg ostrich and created an OstrichCopter.

Having amused himself by taking a bird that couldn’t naturally fly and making it airborne, Jansen didn’t stop there.

Last year, he created two projects, each as mind-boggling and bizarre as his previous conquests.

The first was transforming a deceased rodent into a remote-controlled flying machine called the ratcopter.

For the second, Jansen collected a juvenile white tip reef shark, which had died from a bacterial infection, from a local aquarium.

He fitted it with wings and a jet engine before sending the sharkjet soaring through the air.

Now the infamous artist is at it again after receiving a dead badger from one of his friends.

Playing on the Dutch word for badger and a famous WWII film, Jansen has dubbed the project “Das Boot”, and intends to transform the carcass into a remote-controlled submarine.

However, due to badgers being a protected species in the Netherlands, the transformation of the animal into a water-ready machine is proving to be quite difficult.

Before anything can go ahead, Jansen will have to visit authorities so they can ensure the badger wasn’t killed deliberately, which would be an offence.

Jansen will then have to find a lab willing to waterproof the creature to preserve the badger’s skin, and the submarine will have to be registered.

Other legal restrictions mean Jansen will not be able to export or exhibit the finished product abroad.

For now, the badger remains safely confined in his freezer.

Follow Matthew Dunn on Twitter @mattydunn11