Scientist turned artist? Well, I’ve had a difficult time finding a professional scientific record for Theo Jansen. However, he did study science – with an unspecified discipline as far as my resources on the net go – at the University of Delft Holland. As an artist, Jansen’s progression is somewhat comical. First the man is painting, next he flies a UFO out over a small town in Holland called Delft in 1980 and for the last decade or so he has been dedicated to creating a ‘new nature’. All this according to Jansen’s brief biography on his official website www.strandbeest.com. His new nature is a fusion of art and engineering. His primary materials are plastic electrical conduit and plastic bottles; his design inspiration, computer genetic algorithm programs. The results are multi-legged skeletons that store energy from the wind and use that energy to walk on the beech.

Is this really a new nature? Would those involved with robotics, artificial life, or artificial intelligence agree with this claim? While I love this work in its intricacy, beauty and technical detail, I have a difficult time swallowing the claim that Jansen’s work is special because of his ultimate goal to create a new nature. Jansen’s website states that “eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.” Will these creatures reproduce successfully? Will they evolve on their own? Or is this the artist playing creator with his hands, mind and computer?

When I watch Jansen’s strandbeesten walk across the beech, I think about armies organized and marching to their death and the clumsiness of human invention and intention. But whether it is the artist or scientist performing these experiments, the resultant creatures are valuable as a reflection of our own human experience, if not only as a point from which we can contemplate our own beginnings and goings.

See the 2003 Trailer to the documentary film “Strandbeesten”, a portrait of the dutch artist Theo Jansen

“Kinetic Sculptures” Strandbeest by Theo Jansen

http://www.strandbeestmovie.com/

Images courtesy www.strandbeest.com