Their natural habitat is the beach, but temporarily ten electric pipe animals by artist Theo Jansen (74) have to settle for a parking space a few kilometers from the coast. Along the pond of Kunstmuseum Den Haag they are firmly nailed to the ground, so that they do not run away on the wind, their fuel. Some have tails, others have legs, and still others have traded those legs for a caterpillar-like locomotion mechanism. Because they are arranged in chronological order, their evolution is clearly visible. The oldest example is from 2006, the youngest from 2021.
The age of a beach animal can be deduced from the color of its PVC pipes; in the oldest specimens the characteristic yellow has been transformed by the sun into a light cream color. ‘Over time, the tubes fade and stiffen, making them look like bones. The older they get, the more my animals happen to have the appearance of living nature,’ explains Jansen.
The oldest beach animal in the museum garden may be from 2006, but the species as a whole originated more than thirty years ago. In 1989 the beasts started as a column in de Volkskrant – At the time, Theo Jansen wrote for the science section – and as an attempt to protect the Netherlands from flooding. ‘Sea level rise was already a problem in the 1980s,’ explains Jansen. ‘I toyed with the idea of making a beast that could move sand from the beach to the dunes to solidify them.’ The idea did not go further than a column at first.
Until Jansen went to the Gamma six months later, bought some PVC pipe and started experimenting with building such beasts. ‘That same day I decided that the beach animals would be my project for the coming year. You could say that things got a bit out of hand’, Jansen chuckles as he puts his fork in a slice of apple pie in the museum café. Seven meters above him hangs from the ceiling the Animaris Omnia, a huge beach beast with wings of sail. Like his congeners, he bears a Latin name.
Loyal to the PVC pipe
There are now twelve generations of beach animals and worldwide exhibitions. Enthusiastic laymen are also trying to replicate the animals, with the result that hundreds of people now have a small, self-made beach animal at home. Gradually, Jansen found out that he finds the evolution of the beasts more interesting than their potential to save the Netherlands from drowning. He has been focusing on the first ever since.
Over the past three decades, one thing has remained virtually constant: Jansen’s loyalty to the electric pipe. ‘I chose those yellow tubes as the basic material for my beach animals because they are cheap and easily available. I also think it’s appropriate that they have the same color as the beach and Dutch cheese.’
Almost constantly, because between 1997 and 2001 Jansen experimented with wood to see if he could make other constructions with it. ‘I was still in love with PVC, but the wood as a building material tempted me. It became an affair that lasted for years,” Jansen writes in his new book Strandbeesten, The New Generation†
The result of the timber period was the Animaris Rhinoceros Tabulae, a giant beach beast made of pallets. In 2004, with the help of a company, Jansen made a steel copy of it, also a materials experiment. The three-ton steel colossus was released on a runway at Valkenburg airfield. It ran independently on the wind, but despite this success, Jansen returned to his PVC pipes: ‘I like to mess around on my own. This is much more difficult with materials such as wood and steel, also because of the high costs.’
Nevertheless, Jansen did not choose the PVC pipe in the first place because of its properties. ‘People sometimes wonder what the hell you can do with electrical pipes. But suppose you choose tea bags as the main component of your construction, you will also be surprised at how many options you have with them. It’s not so much about what material you choose, but about the fact that you limit yourself to that material. That forces you to be resourceful and to be guided by what the material itself wants.
‘I don’t see myself as the creator of the beach animals, but I always say that they come into existence on their own. Just like in nature, my beach critters evolve by chance mutations. In the case of the beasts, those mutations are my spontaneous ideas. I don’t go to the beach after a thorough session of detective work in the library with a well thought out plan, but keep going trial-and-error accidental discoveries that sometimes turn out well and sometimes badly.’
An example of this is the way in which Jansen fastens the electricity pipes together: ‘With the first beach animal, the Animaris Vulgaris, I did that with adhesive tape. However, the tape connections proved too weak and I switched to a special kind of rope and later to tie wraps. Then I accidentally discovered that it is even more efficient to fuse the tubes together. Such accidental mutations drive a process similar to natural selection. As a result, new generations of beach animals are constantly being created and the old generations are dying out. You could therefore see the exhibition in the Kunstmuseum as a paleontological exhibition.’
A whole herd
Besides accidental mutations, the beach animals and living nature have more similarities. ‘I imitate elements from nature that I don’t think can be done more efficiently, such as locomotion on legs. But this also happens through trial-and-error’, explains Jansen. In addition, the beach animals have characteristics that you do not find in existing animals, such as locomotion on the ground in the wind. ‘I get inspiration from nature, but it’s not my goal to imitate her.’
What is his goal? Creating a new nature, in the form of a herd of beach animals that can survive independently on the coastal strip. Jansen thinks he will have achieved this in roughly twenty years. ‘We are now in an evolutionary stage in which certain body parts of the animals are still defective. Like a real scientist, I isolate those ailments and try to improve them. Ultimately I want to combine all those individual improvements in one animal and then in a herd.’
Next summer, Jansen will head to the coast again, this time to get started with the walking mechanism of his beach animals. ‘The legs struggle with the rough beach surface. Those spoiled things run smoothly on smooth museum floors, but in the end they are beach animals.’
Jansen demonstrates that museum floors are no obstacle for his animals in an upstairs room of the Kunstmuseum, where visitors can pull three beach animals themselves. A caterpillar-like construction makes it move across the carpet, rattling loudly. Museum visitors watch from a distance. ‘People play far too little with the animals in this room’, complains Jansen. ‘At first I thought that humans would be a natural enemy of my creation. I even thought about having the beach critters shoot poison darts as a defense mechanism. But I soon found out that people leave them alone, even if they are allowed to touch them.’
Jansen thinks this is due to the cuteness of his beach animals: ‘Babies and young animals have the same evolutionary advantage. They evoke the inclination in people to care for and pamper.’ When a curious museum visitor asks Jansen whether he sleeps at night with the animals on the beach to protect them against theft, he answers with a smile: ‘No, I just sleep at home at night.’
Theo Jansen. Beach animals, the new generation. Kunstmuseum The Hague, until 3/8.
Theo Jansen: Strandbeesten, The New Generation† Hannibal; 216 pages; €55.
Four highlighted periods that mark a special step in evolution.
Gluton, the Tape Period (1990)
‘In 1990 I made my first beach animal, the Animaris Vulgaris. The electrical pipes of this specimen were held together by adhesive tape, but that proved too weak as a connecting means. The beast could not carry its body and move its legs only when it lay on its back. I worked on this failure for a year. Yet in my mind I already saw the beach animals running in the wind. Irrational optimism therefore characterizes this period, but that is precisely what ensured that I did not give up.’
Suicide, the period of self-destruction (2009-2011)
‘The beach animals from the Suicidem are strikingly yellow, because they have had little chance of being bleached by the sun on the beach. The name of the period reveals why. A new air drive, consisting of ‘pumps’ of plastic bottles between the shoulders, was supposed to ensure that the animals would run more efficiently. But to move on the rough beach terrain, those pumps had to deliver so much power that the beach critters broke their own backs. This period therefore shows that not every mutation has a positive effect. Compare it to a game of chess: you can come up with all kinds of strategies, but you don’t always win. Yet that is precisely what makes it so adventurous.’
Aspersorium, the Age of Wagging (2012)
‘Just like in nature, every part of my beach animals is functional. In the past I’ve sinned and tailed a beast for aesthetics, but I quickly got rid of that. However, functionality and beauty can also go hand in hand. Just look at the brightly colored feathers of the male peacock, or the wagging beach creatures of the Aspersorium. When two of those beasts wag their tails, we tend to think they are seducing each other, performing some sort of mating dance. But in fact they seduce us so that we find them beautiful and cute and protect them. From an evolutionary point of view, the beach animals have played that very cleverly. Even I am still often amazed at their beauty, even though I have not embellished anything about them.’
Bruchum, the Age of Caterpillars (2016-present)
‘In 2016 I started experimenting with caterpillar-like beach animals. The way the caterpillars move is very efficient. Their center of gravity is low, allowing them to handle rough terrain well. And the uneven beach surface was exactly what my legged beach critters struggled with. When Nasa asked me to think about a lander that could handle the rugged surface of Venus, I also promoted the track construction. Who knows, maybe one of my caterpillar-like beach beasts will reach Venus one day, that would be an evolutionary step.’
