MADEONEARTH

Belly of the Beast

It’s not often that studying physics leads to the Jansen has displayed his sculptures in galleries creation of huge, self-propelled sand walkers that (and, more recently, in London’s Trafalgar Square), seem more like the living skeletons in Jason and the but their native home is clearly the beach. While Argonauts than sculptures made of conduits and some look more like giant armored spiders or wire. But for Theo Jansen, science has a long, bony mechanical, many-legged rhinos, others are elegant arm. He never finished that physics degree, becom- spiral skeletons that sweep along the sand with ing a painter instead. surprising agility. Sometimes huge, fan-like sails catch

“In the 80s the physics came back again,” he says, the wind and start the motion, lending the entire and he started tossing around more sculptural scene the look of a futuristic pirate fleet. Or soda ideas. He launched UFO, a 14-foot black disc, over bottles pumped full of air will jump-start the creatures, the town of Delft, Netherlands. He dabbled in perfor- like some sort of elaborate, earthbound bottle rocket. mance and photography, creating light sculptures of Extremely low-tech, futuristic, and visionary ( Jan-the track of an ultralight flight and of a drill suspended sen’s CAD drawings look like the cockroaches that high over the street, swinging back and forth. would survive Armageddon), the creatures have an

Then, in 1990, he came across some cheap conduits aesthetic that is humble and handmade, and at the in a store, started playing around with them, and has same time sophisticated and highly technical. Clearly been playing ever since. Called the Strandbeesten a lot of time and effort goes into each Strandbeest, but (“beach creatures”), his creations are built from yellow when asked about the plans for his next sculpture, plastic tubing, recycled wood, string, plastic sheeting, Jansen says: “Theo must survive. So I am thinking and vast amounts of imagination. Each creature can very functional.” —Arwen O’Reilly take up to a year to build. Propelled by wind and inertia, they stumble, creak, and race across the ground.

Photograph courtesy of Theo Jansen

>> Theo Jansen’s website: strandbeest.com

20 Make: Volume 08