For the past seven years, photographer and artist Lena Herzog has followed the evolution of a new, kinetic species. Intricate as insects, but with bursts of equine energy, the "Strandbeests" or "beach creatures" are the creation of Dutch artist Theo Jansen, who has been working for nearly two decades to develop a new life form that moves, and even survives, on its own.
 
Set to roam the beaches of Holland, the Strandbeests pick up the wind in their gossamer wings and spring, as if by metamorphosis, into action. As if it were blood, not the breeze, running through their delicate forms, they quiver, cavort, and trot against the sun and sea, pausing to change direction if they sense loose sand or water that might destabilize their movement.
 
Coinciding with a travelling exhibition, Herzog's photographic tribute captures Jansen's menagerie in a meditative black and white, showcasing Jansen's imaginative vision, as well as the compelling intersection of animate and inanimate in his creatures. The result is a work of art in its own right and a mesmerizing encounter not only with a very surrealist brand of marvellous, but also with whole new ideas of existence.
 
The author and photographer
Born and raised in Russia’s Urals, Lena Herzog studied languages and literature at St. Petersburg University, before emigrating to the United States in 1990 where she studied Philosophy. She began taking pictures in 1997, and has since authored the photography books Tauromaquia, Flamenco, Pilgrims, and Lost Souls. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Vanity Fair and exhibited in Europe and the United States.
 
The artist
Dutch visual artist Theo Jansen studied Science at the University of Delft. He spent his early career painting, before deciding to strike out on a new course by making a real flying saucer which flew over Delft in 1980. Since then he has been working on the creation of the Strandbeest species. Jansen’s work has been featured in several television programs, as well as in The New Yorker, New Scientist, and Wired.
 
The contributing author
Lawrence Weschler is Director Emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU. A former staff writer at The New Yorker, he is the author of over 15 books, including the Pulitzer-nominated Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder and Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. He is a contributing editor at Threepenny Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and McSweeney's.
 
Meet the Beests!
Theo Jansen’s kinetic creatures on tour
strandbeest evolution>

Limbering up for their solo show at the Peabody Essex Museum, on view September 19, 2015 to January 3, 2016, Theo Jansen’s famed Strandbeests (“beach animals”) will be meeting the public at a series of happenings along the East Coast. From a launch party to panel discussion at MIT Media Lab, check the Strandbeest schedule here, and don’t miss your chance to meet these jaw-dropping creations which Jansen himself regards as an entirely new species.
 
At Peabody Essex Museum, the exhibition will explore the Strandbeests’ unique locomotion and their fusion of art and science, sculpture and performance. It will examine the creatures’ evolutionary development under Jansen’s careful care, with artist sketches, demonstrations of the creatures' complex ambulatory systems, a hall of "fossils", and photography by Lena Herzog.
 
Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen is available in both print and eBook editions.
 
Exhibition
February 06, 2016 - May 01, 2016
Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602, United States
See the Agenda>
 
Exhibition
May 27, 2016 - September 05, 2016
Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen
Exploratorium, Pier 15, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94111, United States