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n a show
that inspires one to consider the artist as both inventor and
investigator, we are at once confronted by what appears to be the skin,
wings, and skeletal remains of an antediluvian creature.
Animaris
Sabulosa
- a colossal
sculpture turned into a conceptual fossil could be from another galaxy.
At the other end of the gallery Animaris Rigide begins to take a
walk. Deceptively organic in appearance, the artist's ironic stance
emerges as these forms are created from common manufactured materials of
the industrialized world: bruised-ochre PVC electrical conduit, cable
ties, and adhesive tape. Use of these basic elements further emphasizes
the Creation myth.
Jansen
employs the computer as a synthetic, virtual laboratory; his indigenous
North Sea arthropods are genetically engineered to thrive on the beach, walk
on wet sand, and feed on the wind. The digital simulations serve to optimize
the architecture of joints and legs each artificial creature needs to move
in its intended environment. Each limb is composed of a geometrical
arrangement of tubes, the lengths of which the computer selects from a
finite range of 1500 randomly determined segments. The joints are placed to
articulate the closest approximation of the leg's ideal curve through space
as the creature walks. The head both resembles and functions as a sail.
Through the
measured combination of control and whimsy, these endo/exo-skeletal
constructions are animated by interventions such as air currents, while
their locomotion is altered by encounters with dry sand or the surf. Species
that are successful in their environment are able to pass on their leg
designs to their progeny. Art historical precedents such as the flying
machines of Leonardo da Vinci and the mechanical sculptures of Jean Tinguely
serve as points of reference, if not Points of departure. However,
postulating a synthetic evolutionary course in an intellectual climate where
the concept of "cloning" has moved from the realm of fiction to that of
reality, repositions the orbit of Jansen's sculptural activity.
© Marlena Novak
Flash Art
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