July 22, 2007
The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds
Every once in a while, you see something that restores your faith in humanity, something sublime, illuminating, and so creative as to hold your attention fixed while the world continues to madly swirl around. Click on the image to see the video.
His name is Theo Jansen, and he makes kinetic sculptures that are wind powered and walk across the beach.
A scientist-turned-artist, Jansen's bizarre beach animals have their roots in a computer program that he designed 17 years ago in which virtual four-legged creatures raced against each other to identify survivors fit enough to reproduce. Determined to translate the evolutionary process off-screen, Jansen went to a local shop and found his own alternative to the biological cell -- the humble plastic tube.
"Animals are machines as well," said Jansen. "I was making animals with just the tubes because they were cheap but later on they turned out to be very helpful in making artificial life because they are very flexible and multifunctional as well. I see it now as a sort of protein -- in nature, everything is almost made of protein and you have various uses of protein; you can make nails, hair, skin and bones. There's a lot of variety in what you can do with just one material and this is what I try to do as well."