Strandbeests

Tumbling has always been a problem for Strandbeests. Even low animals like Adulari tended to roll instead of walking when the wind becomes strong. Until last summer. The Animaris Apodiacula doesn't tip over anymore. Not even in strong winds. Buttresses prevent the beast from tumbling. Next spring the new generation will have buttresses on both sides.

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Twin animal. It is the child from the Animaris Protinus. One part of the twin is specialized in catching the wind. The other one caries the bottles and teh senses.

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Artist Theo Jansen demonstrates the amazingly lifelike kinetic sculptures he builds from plastic tubes and lemonade bottles. His creatures are designed to move -- and even survive -- on their own.

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Kinetic sculptor and artist Theo Jansen builds 'strandbeests' from yellow plastic tubing that is readily available in his native Holland.

The graceful creatures evolve over time as Theo adapts their designs to harness the wind more efficiently. They are powered only by the wind and even store some of the wind's energy in plastic bottle 'stomachs' to be used when there is no wind.

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This is the beginning of my documentary "Strandbeesten". Strandbeesten is a portrait of the artist Theo Jansen.
Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind.
For this film I've accompanied Theo for five years and the result is a 32 minutes documentary.
The film take part in the documentary section at CAMERIMAGE 2008, International Filmfestival in Lodz, Poland.

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We shot Jansens new creation Animaris Umerus in June 2009 on the beaches of Scheveningen, Netherlands.

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We shot this sequence end of September 2012 in Scheveningen. We had wonderful weather, some really nice on the beach people who helped us and a herd of four animals walking very fast on the beach.
I started my work with Theo ten years ago and every time I come back to the Netherlands to film a new Strandbeest generation I am excited to see Theo?s passion and inspiration and I am really happy to take part in this wonderful work.
If you would like to support my future work with Theo and make further shootings possible, you could give a tip via Paypal for this video. Thank you very much!

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Theo Jansen's Strandbeest walks around leisurely, propelled naturally by the wind flowing through its turbines: https://www.adafruit.com/products/1835

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The new sails of the Animaris Ordis. It walks on quite low wind 15 km/h (7 knots). The name of the new beast is
Animaris Turgentia Vela (strandbeest with billowing sails).
This movie was taken June 26 9.30 pm 2014

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Strandbeest walking with low wind 6-7 knots. The full name is Animaris Turgentia Vela 2 (Zee beest with billowing sails)

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The Animaris Suspendisse is the animal I am working on at the beach this summer (2014). I try to train the beast to survive storms. It survived gusts of 80 km/h.
Music this time not by the London Philharmic, but my own voice. Often I am humming songs during my work. What you hear is La Boheme (Charles Aznavour).

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During the years of Strandbeest evoution, I threw lots of evolutionary unsuccessfull parts on the roof of my cabin. Volunteers gathered them, cleaned them and catagorized them. And they put them display cases.

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Bringing the strandbeest back home after a long walk..

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Courtshipping strandbeests. I discovered this way moving. Don't know how I can use it to make the animals to survive the storms better. Maybe they can dig sand with it.
In this movie the pressed air is coming from a compressor. In natural circumstances the wind is pressed into PET-bottles by pumps connected with moving wings.

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There will be five beach sessions in the summer of 2016 in Holland. Only 100 persons par session. You can subscribe on http://www.strandbeest.com/events.php
The new beast will be Animaris Proboscis (moving trunk). And with gentle wind we can re-animate Animaris Ordis. See movie.

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This summer, experience Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen at the Exploratorium from May 27 to September 5, 2016. This special exhibition features enormous kinetic sculptures called strandbeests—“beach animals” in Dutch—that mesmerize with their eerily lifelike motion. Constructed largely of PVC tubing and equipped with sensory organs and ever-evolving survival strategies, these amazing beests walk a wandering, wind-blown line between art and engineering, mechanics and biology.

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