Skeletons That Walk on the Wind

October 26, 2007

Every once in a while I come across something that is not really technology, in the emerging sense, but is so cool that I have to tell someone about it. Lucky you.

This time it’s work from Dutch visual artist Theo Jansen, who has built animal-like skeletons called Strandbeests that harness the wind to walk. See, for example Animaris Geneticus Ondula and Animaris Rhinoceros.

Jansen, born in 1948, studied physics at the University of Delft, Holland, but instead of finishing his degree, turned to painting. He did that for about seven years and then, in 1980, started a flying saucer project. The UFO was filled with helium and floated over the town of Delft.

“It was hazy weather. The people saw was a black disk coming through the sky,” Jansen told me. “The population was in a commotion.”

After that, he couldn’t paint anymore. The technical inspiration that had disappeared at the university came back and he began building machines. In the 90s, he started playing around with hollow tubes that are used as conduits for electric wire.

“I promised myself to spend one year on the conduits just to see what happens. That was 16 years ago and it became really an addiction,” he said.

The result was Strandbeest, a herd of small and large (some 14 feet tall), multi-leg creatures that scuttle across the beach near his workshop in Eisenberg. Although the hollow conduit he uses is made for electrical wire, no wire or electronics are incorporated into the beasts. They are all comprised of the plastic tubing, pistons, and rubber bands. Wind drives them forward. A small tube hanging down about an inch off the ground sucks in water when the contraption approaches the shoreline, stopping the animal in its tracks.

Jansen uses a computer to digitally simulate leg and joint movement. The head often functions as sail. Engineered to survive on the beach, the creatures balance their time between sand and surf.

“They will know where the dunes are and where the sea is. When the storm is coming up, they go to the dunes and beach themselves,” he said.

Eventually, Jansen would like to raise a herd of these colossal critters and watch them live out their existence on the beach.

Comments

[Janneke Honing]

WAUWWWW!!!
This man is great, i love his "Beests", they look so real, like big insects...!
I saw them before in a commercial here in Spain!
This Dutch guy is famous!...
And Tracy, I like your style of writing!
Greetings from your Dutch fan in Spain.

[Random Comment Generator]

Didn't BMW use these sculptures in an ad campaign? I always thought it was an odd choice, given a BMW's standard mpg...

[Kim]

wow, that is really amazing. my son would go wild over these creatures. a "green" robot, run on natures elements - cool.

[Patty]

Every eight year old in the country will want a Strandbeest in their backyard. Very inventive.

[Chris Davis]

Wonder if there are implications for things that need to be moved, but don't absolutely, positively have to get there by time certain.

[Lori]

I can't tell you how freaky these Strandbeests are. I want one in my backyard.

[Lori]

I can't tell you how freaky these Strandbeests are. I want one in my backyard.