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These sculptural ‘animals’ are amazing; like a combination of DaVinci and David Cronenberg. Jansen has hit upon a form that resonates with my sense of the future/past as present; fairy tales, dinosaurs and mythical beasts.

They also make me think of the effects of space and time in the way Thomas Mann used space and time. Mann suggested [in The Magic Mountain] that movement through space has similar effects upon a person as those of the passage of time; distanciation, obfuscation and disorientation. Not ‘time-traveling’ but ‘travel-timing’; faster if not as permanent.

Anyway, check out the video too…

From Inhabitat:

“Theo Jansen has been creating wind-walking examples of artificial life since 1990. What was at first a rudimentary breed has slowly evolved into a generation of machines that are able to react to their environment: “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.”

Constructed as intricate assemblages of piping, wood, and wing-like sails, Jansen’s creatures are constantly evolving and have become excellently adapted to their sandy beach environment. The creatures sport legs, which “prove to be more efficient on sand than wheels . . . they don’t need to touch every inch of the ground along the way, as a wheel has to”. .”

read the rest after the jump…