CreativeThinkingSkills

His animated works are a fusion of art and engineering. In a BMW television commercial, He says "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds." He is dedicated to creating artificial life through the use of genetic algorithms.

First of all everyone will wonder who the heck is the genius who built the weird looking awesomely amazing moving sculpture.

I present you Theo jansen .
Yep. he's the dude behind of me. I'm an inch away from him~ weeee~ XD

Revealing a little bit of his life.
Born in March 14, 1948, in The Hague, Netherlands
Theo Jansen began his artistic career in the 70s as a painter.
In the 80s, Jansen began to create algorithm programs of artificial life simulation.
he's a Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor .
his series of kinetic sculptures "Strandbeest," a project which has brought him international recognition. received the special jury prize in Ars Electronica 2005.

So what does Theo Jansen do during his free time?
Builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals and are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands.
As seen in this picture , this weird looking creature is roaming around the beach . Creepy isn't it. =)
Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature .


Yep. Plastic yellow tubes . He's insane.

This is a picture of his work place where all the really huge beast are created!

Theo Jansen : I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so 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 I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.
Chongyan : You're crazy . XD

A video clip of Theo Jansen at the Creativity World Forum 2008, Presenting Strandbeest: Making New Life

The Strandbeest project originated from a computer program he wrote over 18 years ago where multi-legged animals raced each other in a survival-of-the-fittest competition.check the link out. it's the game he created.

http://www.cove.org/ape/demo2.htm

So why does all this creatures have legs but not wheels?

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.
Skip all the crap .In conclusion legs work better than wheels on sandy ground. XD

How does this sculpture work or move? It's uses Klann Linkage system to function .
The Klann linkage is a planar mechanism designed to simulate the gait of legged animal and function as a wheel replacement. The linkage consists of the frame, a crank, two grounded rockers, and two couplers all connected by pivot joints.The proportions of each of the links in the mechanism are defined to optimize the linearity of the foot for one-half of the rotation of the crank. The remaining rotation of the crank allows the foot to be raised to a predetermined height before returning to the starting position and repeating the cycle. Two of these linkages coupled together at the crank and one-half cycle out of phase with each other will allow the frame of a vehicle to travel parallel to the ground.The Klann linkage provides many of the benefits of more advanced walking vehicles without some of their limitations. It can step over curbs, climb stairs, or travel into areas that are currently not accessible with wheels but does not require microprocessor control or multitudes of actuator mechanisms. It fits into the technological space between these walking devices and axle-driven wheels

Too much words... Confusing right. =)
Let me shuff in more pictures. XD

Look at the poor him. awwww. all his hardwork and finally creating his beast. XD

From his laboratory in Ypenburg, Jansen studies the history of biological evolution to provide his new generation of creatures with greater and greater capacities.

His dream is that one day they will learn how to evolve without his intervention and continue their lives as any other organism, subject to cycles of nature.

In the future, the Dutch artist expects his creations to become more and more anatomically sophisticated: they will develop muscles, a nervous system, and some kind of brain allowing them to take complex decisions.

he hopes his beach creatures won't need him to keep on evolving. Entire herds on the beach will compete for being the fastest and more stable, and will transmit their DNA autonomously to following generations, already completely incorporated in their ecosystem.

There's actually a short documentary by Alexander Schlichter about him.
It's still not done yet but
The video shown below is the beginning of His documentary "Strandbeesten"

For this film , Alexander accompanied Theo for five years and the result is a 32 minutes documentary. It will be shown at CAMERIMAGE, International Filmfestival in Lodz, Poland in a Documentary Competition .