Animaris Rhinoceros Project

On Friday, we posted about this amazing walking table on display at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, Netherlands. We had no idea who made it, but it sure was cool. Thankfully, reader Marcel is familiar with the peculiar verb morphology and rhotic pronunciation of Dutch and he was able to track the artist dow: Wouter Scheublin.

But one thing that Marcel also called our attention to (mistaking Scheublin for another artist) was a similar but much cooler work by Theo Jansen: an amazing wind-propelled two ton titanium rhinoceros, called the Animaris Rhinoceros Transport.

Here's a description of the project, which is an offshoot of Theo Jansen's earlier work in creating non-sentient beach roaming art forms.

For fourteen years Theo Jansen has been working on creating a new life-form. These creatures consist of walking skeletons made out of yellow electricity tubes. These skeletons are wind powered. Over the years an evolution has occurred, which can be seen in the succeeding generations. Eventually he wants to put these animals on the beach where they will lead their own lives. The Animaris Rhinoceros Transport is an offshoot of the Beach Animal evolution. It is equipped with passanger seating and can be used for transport. As a car is a transport vehicle to the horse and an airplane is a transport vehicle to the bird, so is the Animaris Rhinoceros Transport a transport vehicle to the Animaris (latin name for Beach Animal, see www.strandbeest.com)

It is meant for crossing the tundra. Due to the fact that one must wait until strong wind comes from the right direction, living quarters must be made in the animal to make travel aggreable.

This guy is just righteous: he also does a lot of great work in chairs, tables and cutlery.

Strandbeest [Artist's Site]