Animaris Kinetic

Sometimes you see something so awe inspiring, that you can't help but say "That is too fucking cool to exist." But it does.

Meet Theo Janson. For the past 15 years or so, he has been making a new life-form. Fashioning beasts from innocuous materials like plastic sticks, rope, and plastic sheets, Theo crafts creatures that harvest the wind in to roam the plains. Like a modern day DaVinci, his contraptions resemble the highly ingenious sketches of wood and paper machines featured in DaVinci's notebook.

Armed with sails and a multitude of legs, Theo's strandbeests creak to life, taking shaky but unhesitant steps, moving forward with mechanical precision. His creations have over the years evolved beyond simple movement, you can find plastic bottles acting as pressure valves, a series of locks that open and close, acting as logic gates, giving them a primitive nervous system. Some of them have the ability to detect strong winds with their sails, unleashing a strapped on hammer and start bolting itself down. Some are larger than a bus, the creaking contraption looks like part dinosaur part insect. Theo christens his inventions with the genus name "Animaris", such as Animaris Percipiere, Animaris Ventosa.





There was one part of his creation process that really appealed to me as a biology student: Theo uses the computers to make a code for his creatures, which roughly translates into a rough DNA analogue, and uses them to configure his beests. Using these codes, he'd use the computer to generate variations, and he'd select the best ones out in an odd homage to the theory of evolution. Racing his strandbeests on the beach, he would pick the fastest ones and combine their traits together. In an interview with Theo, he states that he would like to make herds of these things and eventually release them into the wild, letting them live their own lives.


For more pictures of Theo Janson and his works, you can visit his website.