Theo Jansen's lifework

In an age where things seem complex and changing all the time, there is still an underlying creative evolution that keeps the entire process somewhat stable and in harmony. People who remain aligned with this evolution are rare, but Theo Jansen is definitely one of them.

Out of all things, he has decided to focus most of his life to his Strandbeesten, which we all know. In his words, the idea of Strandbeesten has taken possession of him and has since been spreading like a virus. Theo has been speaking at TED Delft a couple of days ago, and shown the world the evolution of his work over more than 20 years. He truly is one of the pioneers of creating objects with embodied behavior, objects that are not driven by abstract electronic brains, but where the intelligence is in the structure of the body itself. And recently he has been taking this further in giving the beasts more 'intelligence'. Watch and listen to his story here:

Strandbeesten

Constructions of highly elegant beauty, even with a function, are Theo Jansen's Strandbeesten. You probably all know this famous Dutch artist, nevertheless does he deserve a place on this blog, especially because of his design methods.

Strandbeesten are artificial mechanical creatures, powered by the wind, that walk along the beach to and fro the sea shore. Their purpose is to loosen up the sand, so it can get blown onto the dunes by the wind, thereby strengthening them. The nice thing is that Theo Jansen optimizes these constructions to get maximum movement with minimum material. The materials he started with was simple PVC tubing, tape and other low-cost materials, although he is currently building larger structures made of wood.

To get to optimal designs, he used evolutionary computer algorithms; shapes that would evolve generation after generation. So in the evening he would create a simple shape, set a goal for it to optimize towards, and in the morning he would wake up and an elegant design would have evolved. For these purposes, this method really takes away the need for the designer to be intelligent; only meta-intelligence is needed. Brilliant.

Here are a few movies, the first one showing Animaris Rinoceros, one of his latest creations, the second is his TED talk.