Wild Things Are on the Beach presents the work of Theo Jansen: “immense multi-legged walking critters designed to roam the Dutch coastline, feeding on gusts of wind,” and built from cheap plastic tubes:
“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.”
The “animals” are enthralling:
“I think they are absolutely beautiful,” said Bruce Shapiro, robotic artist. “He has figured out a way to use inexpensive materials to construct wind-powered walking machines. What makes them so compelling is the wave of actuators, like the motion of a centipede’s legs. I suspect that, as humans, we recognize this action as specific to living things, hence our fascination with Jansen’s ‘organisms.’”
You can see this in the videos, especially Animaris Geneticus and Animaris Currens Ventosa walking.
He keeps improving his animals:
Currently Jansen is working on giving the seventh generation of these creatures, comprising a herd of seven animals, the ability to move even in the wind’s absence. His latest creations contain lemonade bottles in their body structure into which the wind is slowly pumped, enabling the creature to walk for a couple of minutes afterwards. Eventually he plans to increase the efficiency so that they can go on for days or even years.“They have a food source in the wind so they can store energy and use it later on,” said Jansen. “The downside is that they might have to wait for days, for the wind hopper to move on and on and then be able to move for maybe five minutes. They are just like snakes. Snakes also lie in the sun for days digesting their food. On the beach the animals have to catch the wind and wait for a long time before they have enough wind in their stomach to go for a walk.”