Jansen gave a presentation recently at a tech conference and it’s the best background and summary of his work I’ve been craving to see for years:
https://www.poptech.org/popcasts/PopCasts.aspx?viewcastid=25
The video is 30 minutes but if you have the time, current fan or not, it’s worth it to see his conceptual framework (he views the beests as full-on evolutionary life forms subject to natural selection) and his process (from cardboard to wood palette models, basically whatever material he can find).
I like when Jansen says, with all sincerity, that he loves those plastic tubes. Plus, the guy’s been making them for like 20 years or something, started designing them on an Atari. Also, you can download the video to view later.
A number of us have observed here in Industrial Design school, particularly during our second-year Simple Mechanism project, that one, we wish we’d done something like Jansen, that two, Jansen has like got this area of art / design down and mastered, and three, I wish to dedicate myself to exploring a medium and idea and that line between art and design to such an extent as Jansen, and with such dedication.
More Strandbeest links and videos:
http://www.strandbeest.com/
http://www.artificial.dk/articles/theojansen.htm
http://www.ozoux.com/eclectic/archive/2006/11/22/strandbeest
Leave a Reply