Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen has been occupied creating new forms of life since 1990. Now, we're posting about his work because his coming to Barcelona tomorrow May 11th to give a conference at EADA, the new bussiness centre.

He works on skeletons that are able to walk on the wind just as new forms of life, but, as he says "they don’t have to eat." Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually Jansen wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.

About the process, he says:

Legs prove to be more efficient on sand than wheels. Wheels have to work their way through the sand and shift relatively more of it as a result. Try pulling a cart through loose sand and it's hard work. The advantage of wheels, however, is that they don't lurch; their axle is at a constant height, which saves energy. But the legs of the strandbeest have this same advantage; they don't lurch either. The upper and lower leg parts move relative to one another in such a way that the hip joint (at the juncture with the upper leg) remains at a constant height, just as with the axle of a wheel. But they don't have the wheel's disadvantages; they don't need to touch every inch of the ground along the way, as a wheel has to. Legs can leave out patches of ground by stepping over them. Which is why you can better have legs than wheels on sandy ground.

Sketch by Theo Jansen

Storing the wind. Sketch by Theo Jansen

"Animals are machines as well," said Jansen. "I was making animals with just the tubes because they were cheap but later on they turned out to be very helpful in making artificial life because they are very flexible and multifunctional as well. I see it now as a sort of protein -- in nature, everything is almost made of protein and you have various uses of protein; you can make nails, hair, skin and bones. There's a lot of variety in what you can do with just one material and this is what I try to do as well."

About the design, we can read at Art Futura web-site:

Jansen's creatures begin to take shape as a simulation inside a computer, in the shape of artificial life organisms which compete among themselves to be the quickest. Jansen studies the winning creatures and reconstructs them three-dimensionally with light and flexible tubes, nylon thread and adhesive tape. Those moving around more efficiently will donate their "DNA" (length and disposition of the tubes forming their movable parts) to the following Standbeest generations.

Animaris Percipiere by Theo Jansen

Self-propelling beach animals like Animaris Percipiere have a stomach. This consists of recycled plastic bottles containing air that can be pumped up to a high pressure by the wind. This is done using a variety of bicycle pump, needless to say of plastic tubing. Several of these little pumps are driven by wings up at the front of the animal that flap in the breeze. It takes a few hours, but then the bottles are full. They contain a supply of potential wind. Take off the cap and the wind will emerge from the bottle at high speed.

The trick is to get that untamed wind under control and use it to move the animal. For this, muscles are required. Beach animals have pushing muscles which get longer when told to do so. These consist of a tube containing another that is able to move in and out. There is a rubber ring on the end of the inner tube so that this acts as a piston. When the air runs from the bottles through a small pipe in the tube it pushes the piston outwards and the muscle lengthens. The beach animal's muscle can best be likened to a bone that gets longer. Muscles can open taps to activate other muscles that open other taps, and so on. This creates control centres that can be compared to brains.

So, if you're around Barcelona, don't miss Jansen's conference tomorrow [May 11th] at 9:30am in Hotel Majestic, Paseo de Gracia, 68. More info about Theo Jansen, here