Originally published at: Artist creates "new form of life" on the world's beaches | Boing Boing
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I’ve admired Theo Jansen’s work for years and even built some automata myself but disagree that it’s a form of “life” in any meaningful sense of the word. Maybe it’s just a translation thing and he’s not quite making a sincere claim that his creations are alive. But any definition of life that his machines meet would also include plenty of clever mechanisms that came decades or even centuries before.
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Oh! This is a common misconception. Jansen’s creations aren’t “life” because of how they act, but because they have souls, harvested and then trapped inside. They are left with no senses or control over their alien bodies, but even so the restless wind-driven motion keeps them from escaping like they do from corpses, holding them there in perpetuity. Neat, huh?
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Given the choice between fragile mechanisms trundling along the beach, and free roaming poltergeists, I’ll definitely prefer something that can’t move without a stiff breeze. 
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It does look very Burgess-shale-ish, though…
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Creepy! And fascinating
I wonder if Jansen’s art was an inspiration for the VR game Paper Beast which has some similar creepy vibes? It was created by Eric Chahi who worked on Another World
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The little model sitting in a box somewhere in this basement might then contain the building blocks of life. Huh.
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