Week 11: Theo Jansen

AMAZING!
Simply wonderful.

I think the concept of evolution is being recreated through Jansen's work. Evolution in a biological sense occurs as natural selection occurs, over hundreds of years. Species are permitted to live and die out naturally. Jansen set's a time limit to his creatures life cycles. The next jump in the evolutionary chain occurs at his whim, not at the point of natural advancement. Also, evolution is a continuum, what is being deemed evolution in his work is discreet advancement. The argument could be made about the granularity of steps required to be deemed advancement, but either way you're dealing with distinct types of measurements (think integers and floating point values).

The choice of material to build the creatures out of makes a wonderful statement about reusability and sustainability. What types of materials in the US are used for building that could easily be forged into art? I remember when I was younger taking scraps of plywood and 2x4s from construction rubbish bins and building skate ramps and rails. Not quite the same as art, but still a solid reuse factor.

I would like to see this taken to a more meta level. The reuse of representations of animals that evolve out of the creation of new ideas. OOooo that gives me tingles.