LLEI D'ART 14

Art andEngineering: Theo Jansen’sBestiary Espacio FundaciónTelefónica (Madrid) Until the 17th of January 2016 Born inScheveningen (Netherlands), a small coastal village close toTheHague in 1948, Jansen studiedPhysics at Delft Technical University. At the start of the 1980s, theDutch artist began to create artificial life algorithm simulations. His interest indesigning living autonomous organisms through software led him to start a series of kinetic Strandbeest sculptures, whichhavebrought him international recognition. As the artist himself says inhis book TheGreat Pretender : OnEarth there is nomorepretentious creature than the humanbeing. Fortunately, we have the talent tobe able to create aworldof fantasy, and anyone incapable of daydreaming ends upbeingdepressed. This talent for simulation is sopowerful that it even leads us tobelieve that we exist. Since 1990, theDutchpolymathhas beenworkingonwhat arenew forms of life, kinetic sculptures or animals engendered out of plastics, rather thanprotein chains, aswouldbe the case in any life form. Skeletons structured through a laborious linkage of fragments of yellowplastic tubes, amaterial commonly used as a cableprotector inHolland. The colour paleswith thepassingof time and exposure to the sun and water to their characteristic straw-like or bone-like tone. Jansen’s ingenious beings canmove autonomously, gaining their energy from the seabreeze. The tubes, says Jansen, are flexible yet rigid enough tobe used in triangular structures. Pistons can turn through the tubes and store air inside them […] true ideas, as evolution has shown, areproducedby pure coincidence. The idea of theStrandbeest beach animalswas accidental […] Curiously, restrictions ledme to search for less obvious paths, and new ideas appeared, oftenbetter than the original ones. Inspiredby evolution, Theo Jansendreams and creates fabulous, yet rudimentary beasts taken from an imaginary that wander, and leavepart of theirmost notable attributes to the next generationof creatures: the first are relegated to a hypothetical groupof extinct Animaris ( Strandbeest ), and thus Jansen recreatedhis particular visionof natural selection. He grewupon thewindswept beaches of theNetherlands, where the sea has always threatened to swallow the animals upone day anduponwhose sands his creationswander taciturn, like gentle and lonely penitents. After readingRichardDawkins’s TheBlindWatchmaker in 1986, Jansenwas fascinatedby the theory of evolution and natural selection, and so, four years later hedecided to focus hiswork on the creationof artificial beings. An advert launched in2007brought hiswork to international attention and since thenhe has been constantly indemand from art centres andmuseums from around theworld. His charming beasts are completely beyond traditional sculptural concepts andmove into adifferent aestheticplan articulated around movement. It is a fusionof reality and fiction, and for threemonths, thirteenof his spectacular automatons canbe seen at the FundaciónTelefónicaSpace, located inMadrid’s calle Fuencarral until the 17thof January: the show features pieces from themost rudimentary ‘creature’, delivered in1990, to the most sophisticated, agile and flexible of Jansen’s ingenious ‘animaloids’ that remind us of the fabulous skeletons of extinct animals found in the galleries of a zoological museum. Given thatmany of his initial scions havebecomeweaker over time, as the joints aremore fragiledue to the intensive use of the heat usedby the artist to soften theplastic, the works havebeen suspended from the ceiling, as they are unable to standby themselves. Fromhis experience, Jansen has concluded that the lengthof the legswas one of themain aspects inpreventingwear and tear on the joints. Thus he adoptednewmaterials and systems that allow formovement, even in the absence of wind, and also stop the creaturebeing strandedor overturnedby thewaves. Jansendevelops this kindof robot art out of his laboratory located inYpenburg, where he gestates survivors that are anatomically evermoreperfect and adapted to themedium. He alsodesigns hybriddescendants of thebest-adapted models. Hedreams of themagicmoment when the creation gains independence from its creator, something that he himself declares is possible in the next twenty years. 65