Theo Jansen

Regina De Con Cossío: In recent years, many artists have approached science to build projects. What do you think distinguishes an art object made from science from a purely scientific object?

Theo Jansen: In my view, the distinction between art and science is very thin. Many scientists are more artists than they want to know. I think art is freer than science. You can play more. Scientists are usually tied to an institution and tied to agendas. The great privilege of the artist is that he can play without being held accountable.

RDCC: The concept of aesthetics has undergone several transformations. For classical or traditional art, aesthetics is synonymous with beauty. But since modernity and, partly inspired by contemporary art, it is not necessarily something beautiful or that causes a pleasure of the senses. Many artists see the aesthetic as a social and artistic construct where the shapes represent a feeling or an emotion in innovative ways. What is aesthetic to you?

TJ: That something is logical and that it is right is for me a form of aesthetics. You can also find it in mathematics. Especially when mathematics becomes visible as a mirror image. We have become so used to mirroring images that we no longer find it special and we do not dwell on it. It is amazing that there is a copy of the world behind the glass. It’s forbidden area. As soon as you want to move your finger to the mirror image world, a copy of that finger will come and it will stop. And it presses against your finger with exactly the same force, so you can’t get in. I think that logic is aesthetically beautiful.

RDCC: Your beings are born, evolve and disappear. They can be related in many ways to the process of a living being, but they have no organs or fluids at all: they lack blood, tears or sweat. These beings are a kind of model and, as we know, models serve to ask questions about the world. What is the question you want to ask your Strandbeest?

TJ: The Strandbeests are undergoing an evolution. My ideas are kind of mutations and most mutations don’t work. But sometimes something unexpected happens that allows them to take a step forward in their development. What the Strandbeests wonder and what I wonder is: how is it all possible? How can we exist? How did I get into my body? We marvel at our existence. A lot of people do that, but I never got over it. And neither do the Strandbeests.

RDCC: When a human or pet dies, their bodies rot and decompose. They disappear. Rituals are performed around them: people (and many pets too) have spaces where their relatives and close people visit them, talk to them and make complex memories to feel their presence. What happens to your Strandbeest in that sense?

TJ: Strandbeests don’t disappear, they go to the boneyard. These skeletons, or remains, represent a certain stage in evolution. The whole range of skeletons tells a story. A fairy tale perhaps, an invention of the artist, but it is true. It tells a story with strong roots in reality. It is a mirror image of our existence.

RDCC: Social anthropologist Mary Douglas explains that when thinking about dirt, it’s important to discuss the nexus “between order and disorder, being and non-being, form and formless, life and death.” How do you come up with these concepts when building the Strandbeest? What fate awaits them in a world grappling with climatic problems and whose survival is at stake on planet Earth in the coming decades?

TJ: It always surprises me that many people associate the Strandbeests with the climate crisis. Perhaps this thought arises because the beach animals get their energy from the wind and do not have to eat. I also regularly get comments along the lines of the Strandbeests being the last survivors on Earth. What I hope is that the Strandbeests can stimulate optimism. The optimism that is not based on a bicycle but on a feeling within ourselves. We need that optimism to face climate change.

RDCC:  In the first part of this interview I asked you about concepts such as aesthetics, art or the role of the artist. But you artificial beings also marvel at man. I want to ask you a question that director Stanley Kubrick said guided much of his filmography: What makes us human, what distinguishes a human from a machine?

TJ: Yes, that’s a good question. Looking at you other people, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish. We are very complex machines. Our chemistry is based on (hereditary) tendencies or very complex reactions to sensory perceptions. Harari describes it beautifully in Homo Deus. He says we have no soul. You may not have a soul, but I’m sure I do. I think therefore I am. The question that always haunts me: why did my soul end up in this body.