MASS MoCA up in North Adams, Massachusetts, has a great show running through April ‘08 called The Believers that includes one of Dutch kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen’s self-propelled Strandbeests or beach animals. Jansen has spent the last ten years perfecting these strange wind-driven skeletal creatures made of plastic yellow tubes. Ultimately he hopes to evolve them to the point where he can set herds of them free in the wild to survive on their own. Check out these videos for the full effect: South African BMW ad featuring Jansen, Jansen at work in the lab, De Animaris Percipiere.
The Believers isn't about "belief" per se, but rather about the believers themselves, whose deeply held personal truths fly in the face of skepticism, irony, and often, reason. The year-long show has several other works of note including a Panamarenko “gravity-defying” machine and Yoshua Okón and Fritz Haeg's Plan B: Dymaxion Projections, which explores the history of alternative communities, and is a prelude to them building their own in rural Mexico.
(see also: Wild Things Are on the Beach)
