Theo Jansen: The art of creating creatures

Theo Jansen (born March 14, 1948, in The Hague, Netherlands) is a Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor. He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals and are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands. His animated works are a fusion of art and engineering; in a car company television commercial Jansen says: "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds."

Theo talks about a project he started 16 years ago and its about making new forms of life. These forms of life are made using plastic tubes. These creatures are mainly powered by the wind. He explains the propotion of the tubes in each animal is very important for walking. There are 11 numbers which are called the eleven holding numbers. These are the distances of the tubes which make it walk the way it does. Infact it’s a new invention of a wheel. The axis of a wheel stays on the same level just like the hip of the creature does. He says it’s a better method than a wheel and explains if you try to ride a bicycle on the beach, its not very easy to do. But this new method makes movement easier as the feet of the animal just steps over the stand and need not touch every bit of the ground in between like a wheel does. So basically, 5000 years after the invention of the wheel, he says, we have a new form of the wheel.

Each animal is made to detect all the dangers on the beach. And one of the biggest is the sea. Thus, each animal is equipped with a water feeler. This is basically a tube that normally sucks in air. But when it detects and swallows water it feels the resistance of it, therefore, causing the animal to move away from the water. The animal is also equipped with a brain. This is a binary step counter. The purpose of this is to let the animal know where exactly it is on the beach at all times. There is also a nose attached to the creature. This helps to stabilize the animal during a storm or harsh winds. A hammer sort of device hits the nose which is a sort of pin that is driven into the ground helping the animal fixate itself to the ground.