transcript
Theo Jansen's work day begins in a shipping container that doubles as a tool shed. Outside he gets a firm grip on his - well - passion is one word. Obsession is another - and hauls it off toward the sea to do some tweaking.
Jansen's creations are forged in his studio workshop a few miles away, just off the main highway to Amsterdam.
He calls them strandbeasts. That's dutch for beach animals.
Jansen is 64 now - an inventor and artist who, back in the 60's, studied physics and math. And then discovered his true calling. Breathing life into ordinary PVC pipe.
(Jansen speaking) The power source is this compressor that we have on the other side-
(Announcer Interviewing) Theoretically the wind.
(Jansen) Yes, theoretically the wind.
(Jansen) I don't try to make beautiful animals. I just try to make it function and when it's finished I'm surprised myself how beautiful they are.
Beautiful standing still and even more beautiful in motion. It's here on the flat hard sand of the north sea at at low tide that with a little coaxing the strandbeasts will strut their stuff.
The beasts are powered by the wind. Their articulated joints are attached by melted sections of pipe running off a central spine. And boy do they run.
But they stumble too, and even fall, as Theo continues to reinvent and refine them, generation after generation.
(announcer interviewing) So that - you control the flow of air just by pinching the hole.
(Jansen speaking) Yeah, it's to make it simple. The idea is that they walk parallel to the coast, and there they can steer more or less by putting it to the ??? some resistance and-
(Announcer Interviewing) Oh I see
Jansen's designs have morphed over the years. 34 in all. Starting with animaris vulgaris, which was only a qualified success.
(Jansen speaking) Every time I put them on the beach they just collapsed and it was very frustrating. In the beginning it was the rigidness of the material and the joints. The joints were [the problem for] the first five years - it was the joints.
Jansen's design problems, and solutions, are documented in a series of DaVinci-like sketches of his beasts' evolution, all with Latin-esque names. Animaris persipieri was one of his largest efforts.
Animaris Ventosa had a double under-carriage.
And this design detour he called Animaris Rhinocerous was made of cardboard.
Outside his hilltop studio, the skeletons of the earlier models litter the grass.
(Announcer Interviewing) Why do you allow some of them to go extinct?
(Jansen) Well, because, its so much work to repair them all the time.
The skeletons, like fantasy dinosaurs, have been shown in galleries across Europe and Asia, with Jansen on the lecture circuit to explain how they work.
(Jansen speaking) The backbone, which makes circular movements, like this-
But is this engaging mixture of engineering and whimsey really art? Yes it is, says Denise DeCordova, head of sculpture at London's Royal College of art.
(Announcer interviewing) What is it, that draws us in?
(DeCordova) I think audiences like to experience wonder before things, and I suspect the encounter is one of wonder and awe.
Wonder, awe, and sheer enchantment. The beasts are irresistible to passers-by.
And passing dogs. (dog pees on one)
The secret of their uncanny life-like walks, says Jansen, is the proportion of the leg parts, which he worked out as a computer algorithm.
(Jansen speaking) One of the major details(?) is that the leg shouldn't spend too much time in the air - just go back to the ground - you have to think of real animals doing it. Trying to seek balance.
Jansen is hoping for a major exhibit in the US next year.
His only worry: that the manufacturer will stop making his raw material.
(Jansen)This is enough for the rest of my life
(Interviewer)Is it really? For the rest of your life?
Jansen bought, and is now storing, 30 miles of the stuff, so he'll be sure to have enough to continue work on his ultimate project.
A strandbeast so perfect that it could one day, leave his creator behind.
(Interviewer) And keep walking after you're gone from the Earth.
(Jansen) Keep on living somehow in the future.
One man's pipe dream of immortality.
