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  • Balloons

    Bradly Gunn
    Jun 13, '13 10:09 PM EST

    [B] What if we just started doing projects that playfully exercise our knowledge and skill. Something that will exercise our creative muscles and keep our minds sharp.
    [A] ‘Balloon’ started when an old house was being torn down (to be replaced by an apartment building) and we wondered why land use signs do not include sections to illustrate the height of proposed projects.
    [S] This past year, more than one building was demolished everyday in Seattle. Over a fifty percent increase in annual demolition, since 2010
    [A] In an idealistic world, buildings would be designed with more thoughtfulness about the physical surroundings and the historical context. Often financial profitability forces bigger buildings at the expense of better buildings.
    [G&M] The combination of land control, costs, and required densities led to production dominated housing. Designers were seen as little more than technical facilitators.
    [B] What if we could leverage cultural capital as a means of improving the built environment.
    [A]  We wanted to bring attention the un-visualized spatial implications of the new building’s height. We approached the project with the idea of delineating the height with a ceiling of balloons. In essence, we wanted to show the community the height of the proposed building in an impactful  and playful manner. As neighbors will soon be faced with losing current views and access to sunlight.
    [B] The project is not about rationalizing cause and effect, it is about finding something interesting and engaging our environment on a physical level.
    [Z] “I enter a building, see a room, and - in the fraction of a second - have this feeling about it.”
    [A] It was a simple idea at the time. Nothing that was very extreme and really something that was more meant to have fun for the purpose of making. With that being said, maybe we just wanted to make. Simple as that, but this gave us a reason. Anyhow, like may endeavors the schematics of the winds and balloon heights (60”+) forces us to become more creative, which in the end was a larger success than what would possibly have happened if we were to execute the original idea. Hence the project became a manipulation of space by an introduction of a group of paranormal orbs.
    [Du] Connotation - meaning that according to the observer’s imagination, he can go into any field or any form of imagination and associations of ideas he wants, depending on his own reactions. In other words, my reactions were not to be his reactions at all. it was a sort of catalytic form in itself, ready to be accepted by everybody, or to be interpreted by the different temperaments of all the spectators.
    [A]  When I say paranormal I mean the balloons were a object to pair with a light source near the camera in a space. Like the idea of water droplets (especially rain) in an unexpected frame. Typically these circular balloon artifacts are not used in this manner in the way we were using them to exploit space. Maybe that is why we found it so humorous and intriguing to see these paranormal objects out of context in contrast to a very simple and bleak surrounding.
    [B] It was sort of like taking a bunch of kids, giving them some candy, and then dropping them off at an old folks home.
    [De] If the visible and the articulable elements enter into a duel, it is to the extent that their respective forms, as forms of exteriority, dispersion or dissemination, make up two types of “multiplicity,” neither of which can be reduced to a unity...And these two multiplicities open up on to a third: a multiplicity of relations between forces, a multiplicity of diffusion which no longer splits into two and is free of any dualizable form.
    [A] So back to the point, the project went sideways and took us on a journey of a late night installation of a “good time” object. We got may questions while walking down the street with a large handful of balloons, such as “where is the party?”. Many happy faces as adults turned into children again. In our eyes there were many successes with or without the presentation you see here, so please enjoy this little excerpt of our late night endeavors and don’t take this or design too seriously.
    [M] Join the revolution of possibility.

    [A] Aaron Trampush
    [B] Bradly Gunn
    [De] Gilles Deleuze
    [Du] Marcel Duchamp
    [G&M] Miles Glendinning and Stefan Mathesius
    [M] Bruce Mau
    [S] Seattle City Data
    [G&M] Miles Glendinning and Stefan Mathesius
    [Z] Peter Zumthor

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  • 2012.10.09

    Bradly Gunn
    Oct 9, '12 12:26 PM EST


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