Originally published at: An update on what Dutch kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen has been up to | Boing Boing
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Those are gorgeous. What a mind in that man!
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Somewhere in the basement is a plastic model for one of these that I have never completed assembling. It has a lot of little pieces.
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I have a completed one above my desk 
time to dig yours out and build it.
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I love those things. And every year I forget to put myself on the waiting list to see them IRL.
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Long time fan. I would love to go and see them, but I’m afraid that my horse, Agro, might not survive the trip.
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It has a lot of little pieces.
yep. and my first, well second (discreditable) thought viewing those @#$! amazing objects, was: How long does it take to transport one of those things …to the beach? with the “lots of little pieces”. ((1) the pieces are numbered (b) Art interns (iii) He lives right there on the beach (δ) They’re self-assembling!)
Oh for the love of linkages!
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And how does he afford them?
How exactly does one afford to be a full-time artist making these crazily complex large pieces of art that eventually just destroy themselves?
I never understood how these giant installation artists could spend their lives doing this awesome stuff and seem to live quite well.
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I love these things. Somehow (for me) they never cross over to being scary although they have the potential to do so, they all seem friendly or at least non-threatening. I adore the ones that galumph along like oversized caterpillars. Jansen also seems to be advancing to flying Strandbeests too; I look forward to the ones that walk when the wind is insufficient to get them aloft.
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There are lots of different answers to this. A tiny minority of artists make huge sums from selling work, and there’s also a tier who do OK from steady sales, though those are mainly painters / photographers / printmakers, since it is embarrassingly easier to sell art that is physically easy to move and store.
Most artists live off some combination of inherited wealth, side gigs like teaching or curating, and various forms of patronage. But a big part of it is just frugality; in that world it’s normal for someone to do a magazine photoshoot or have dinner with a billionaire patron, and then go home and burn stuff to save on heating so they can buy materials. Even if you happen to end up as Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst, it’s not a career you can go into the way you’d become a realtor or whatever; you have to commit to doing it full time for no money, and then work it out from there.
(This is one of several reasons why it’s so stomach-turning when jet-ski dealers go on Facebook to bloviate about welfare recipients’ work ethic) (and yes, even the Netherlands has people like that)
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Everything you could possibly want to know about strendbeests, straight from the source:
https://www.strandbeest.com/
(Doesn’t onebox, but this is strandbeest central.)
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Thanks for the heads-up. I really must try and make an effort to see a Strandbeest sometime this summer. It shouldn’t be too difficult, being Dutch and living in the west of Netherlands and all.
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I’m only three hours or so away by car - I hope one day I’ll finally get around to visit.
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http://www.strandbeestmovie.com/
Meanwhile, a pagan festival is held in town, with the Simpson family and the others attending where Theo Jansen shows his feature attraction: the Strandbeest, a wind-powered sculpture.
(Haven’t found a clip of this yet, sorry.)
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What I find most freaky is that they have entirely mechanical (or pneumatic, I suppose?) sensors that make them change direction when they walk into the water
ETA: and the whole thing is based on what are basically pneumatic transistors. You could argue it works on a digital basis!
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