These wind-powered sculptures by Theo Jansen are amazing to behold. I have shown them before but they are so beautiful that I wanted newcomers to this blog to see them.
You can see more of Jansen’s creations at his website, where he describes the many challenges he had to overcome.
Definitely has a cool/romantic factor. But…..this guy’s real legacy is having a pretty big negative footstep regarding the environment.
These are amazing. I had not seen these before. Thanks, Mano!
I’ve seen table top-sized versions of these that are claimed to emerge from a 3D printer completely assembled and ready to go -- just add wind.
Cool from an engineering standpoint, but, in addition to the good point about their environmental impact, the guy does seem (talk of a creator notwithstanding, ahem) to have a little too much belief in them as being actual new forms of life: all metaphorical, perhaps, but I personally would prefer that he simply said that he likes designing new devices rather than being massively hyperbolic and talking about creating new creatures.
These structures also make an excellent example that structure is function and that you can get apparently purposeful actions that aren’t really more than inanimate systems being provided a push*.
*wind, not hand of god.
Wow, those are really something! Thanks for re-posting for some of us newer readers!
I agree. The structures were beautiful, but the inventor’s talk about new forms of life came across as … weird.
Thanks for posting this, Mano. I hadn’t seen it before. Speaking of using wind power, here’s an interesting video I found that shows a creative use of wind power for clearing land mines: