Theo Jansen is unveiling one of  his new wind-driven creatures at Shrewsbury’s Shift-Time: A Festival of Ideas this July. This gives us an excuse to show this piece of much-loved video of his “strandbeests”:

 

STRANDBEESTEN_TRAILER from Alexander Schlichter on Vimeo.

Shift-time is taking its inspiration from the Darwin celebrations this year. It also features a new sound/video work Follow The Voice by the great Marcus Coates:

In a playful echo of Darwin’s The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Marcus Coates’ new film work, Follow the Voice establishes striking parallels between a range of familiar man-made sounds and an equally evocative chorus of animal cries and calls. Chasing pockets of sound around the urban landscape of Shrewsbury, (the ‘beep’ of the supermarket checkout; the siren of a reversing delivery lorry) and by slowing down or speeding up his recordings, Coates reveals an extraordinary likenesses with the natural calls of animal species. Follow the Voice captures the heightened feeling of interconnectedness at the heart of Darwin’s view of the world, and reminds us of the spirit of curiosity and discovery that infuses his ideas.

Follow The Voice premieres on July 11 and is installed in the Unitarian Church where Darwin worshipped as a child.

More on Shift-Time here.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology