Artist Theo Jansen creates creatures out of plastic yellow tubes, as the above video illustrates:
I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat. Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storm and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.
Alva Noë considers a question raised by these “strandbeests”: What is life?
Jansen’s intuition is that life is tied to problem-solving, to coping with basic tasks necessary for living. In the case of the beach beasts, this means letting the winds carry you along without being destroyed by their forces, navigating the shore without getting sucked into the water. Every change Jansen introduces to their design and function is a direct response to these real survival challenges. The result of this evolutionary process is, or would finally be, autonomy. …
Is it right that life is tied in this way to autonomy and problem-solving, to self-sustaining activity? Are living beings just machines that, within limits, can keep themselves up and running? Is the difference between Jansen’s strandbeests as they exist today and their descendants that might someday patrol the coasts of Holland just a matter of degree? Or is life qualitatively different?
The Dish 