hurrengoa
beach beasts    Dutchman Theo Jansen has spent the last fifteen years in his workshop-house on the beach at Ypenburg "looking for a new way to live". This contemporary Doctor Frankenstein, has created different generations of organic creatures and released them onto the beach. Seen from a distance, these beasts look like giant insects or mammoths. They are designed on a computer but they need no modern technology to come into being. Even though they are made with material from the industrial age (plastic bags, sticky tape...) they move along the wet sand with nothing more than the power of the wind. Each one of Theo Jansen’s new creatures incorporates new developing techniques and whatever else he has learned from previous creations. Once these new hybride creations come to life, they follow Darwin-esque evolution patterns and become more and more adopted to their beach environment. They take whatever decisions necessary for their survival. Take the "Animaris Sabulosa" for instance; when it detects winds that are too strong for it, it sinks its nose into the sand as if it were an anchor. Theo Jansen dreams that one day his creatures will start to devolop by themselves and just like any other living being, they will be able to life as a part of the cycle of life. Dreams are only dreamd so we won’t pay too much attention to him on that one. We know cannabis is legal in Holland...

Theo Jansen has spent many years in the anonimity of his workshop. Recognition for the work by this engineer, scientist and artist hasn’t come easy. In these times of digital revolution and highly developed robots, his mechanic-looking work could only be seen by those who made their way to the beach at Ypenburg. Today, as we enter the age of climate change, sustainable development and ecological science, his strategies and creations have garnered admiration from all over the world. Such has been the success of the beach creatures, they have also been the protagonists of something wonderfuly contradictory; car (one of the least autonomous of our machines) manufacturers BMW recently used them in an important publicity campaign.