Fifteen years ago, Theo Jansen began to create life not by manipulating genetic material, but with plastic tubing and tape. He built animals that wander and drift along the seashore. And if the first generations moved along solely helped by the wind, later species beat their wings in order to get ahead, displaced sand or anchored down on the ground when storms were approaching. The next generations stocked air in order to get ahead in still weather. Today, Theo Jansen implants nerve cells, also made of plastic tubing, to develop a sort of intelligence optimizing his creatures' survival. Maybe one day they will become autonomous.
Somewhere between Leonardo DaVinci's inventions and Jean Tinguely's sculptures, this Dutch artist and engineer re-creates life's beginnings by constructing gigantic insects.