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Ballistic Propaganda Machine
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CLICK HERE! WATCH COVERAGE OF "10 YEARS OF DUMB"

This installment, BAM’S RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION

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BALLISTIC ARCHITECTURE MACHINE'S “10 YEARS OF DUMB”

After ten years of pursuing almost anything, Ballistic Architecture Machine’s exhibition, “10 Years of Dumb,” offers a chance to reflect on the past in a country manic to forge the future.

BAM developed its design practice by taking any opportunity which came in the door. Over the past 10 years BAM’s admittedly dumb strategy of ‘just say yes’ has led to countless mistakes yet ultimately has resulted in a portfolio of strange and exuberant works with a seemingly incomprehensible breadth, from the design of costumes, parades, building facades, parks, musical events, furniture, to wickless hand candles. As such the exhibition is intended be honest and even show errors in BAM’s logic. Although poised to be one of China’s leading design practices BAM continues along divergent paths pushing farther into the depths of design.

Never estimate the power of stupid... Stupidity is a force to be reckoned with... Life is harder if you’re stupid... Education can’t cure stupid... Human stupidity is a constant... Beauty fades, stupid is forever...

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BAM EVOLVES

Ballistic Architecture Machine (BAM) is a design office founded by Jacob Walker, Daniel Gass, and Allison Dailey, three close friends and former classmates, nearly expelled from architecture school for creating installation art. BAM’s early interest in installation work lead them to gravitate away from architecture and towards the field of landscape. However, BAM's evolution towards landscape was not a straight line. While the fields of architecture, art, and engineering receive an enormous amount of attention from designers and clients in China, BAM focuses on all the spaces outside of architecture to create public spaces that integrate the IDEA of nature. It was while working in the office of Martha Schwartz, one of the pioneers of the landscape-as-art movement that the trio began to define their professional agenda.

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NATURE IS AN IDEA

BAM believes that the definition of what nature is lies in culture. Among different cultures, views of what nature is, and where it exists, vary greatly. The more we understand differences between our varied definitions of nature, the more evident it becomes that nature is, in fact, an idea. As globalization ties cultures closer together, our varied definitions of nature may become one of the only remaining differences between cultures.

Views on where nature lies, and what the human role is in shaping nature, create drastically different outlooks towards our urban environment, and drastically different understandings of where the landscape lies within that construct. BAM’s retrospective, “10 Years of Dumb,” illustrates through project work how BAM grapples with the culturally diverse ideas about nature that shape our built environment.

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PRETENDING IT’S A PERFECT PROCESS

BAM has been in practice for ten years, in Beijing since 2009. Over that course of time BAM’s business and design method has changed and evolved. BAM has been so focused on producing work, and the pace of business in China is so manic, we cannot reflect on work which has been produced, or the circuitous routes we might have taken. For us, BAM’s 10-Year Retrospective provides reflection.

Apart from self-reflection there is a critical aspect behind the presentation of work. Designers, even more so architects, love to represent themselves and their work as a perfect process. This approach to representation is a fabrication, a constructed façade, an artificial reality. BAM stands in opposition to such false identity. Most architects are still constrained by the Modernist belief that work must stand for itself. However, for BAM, projects do not in fact represent ‘the whole picture.’ Our built work is a fraction of the story, a small piece of a larger, unfolding event.

Although many projects are complete and constructed, when viewed through the standardizing lens of contemporary media, or even experiencing them physically, BAM’s projects exist devoid of the conditions that shaped them. BAM’s work is incomplete without the accompaniment of their truthful stories. Good design, like good storytelling, breathes ideas to life. The exhibition “10 Years of Dumb” begins to complete BAM projects by sharing the cultural and emotional contexts from which the work results.

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THE EXHIBITION

The Tabula Rasa gallery housed BAM’s exhibition, “10 Years of Dumb,” in a space typical of the 798 Arts District in Beijing: a lofty expanse in an oversized industrial structure. BAM’s show filled every square centimeter of the gallery including space typically relegated to back of house. Three small rooms each contained a unique environment: the Qingdao Garden installation, a movie room entitled “Schizophrenic BAM,” and the Library with BAM’s academic-oriented books and projects. In the main gallery a wall bifurcates the space, creating two rooms: the Landscape Room and the Installation Room. A plethora of projects is organized on the walls with videos displayed on monitors and tables brimming with physical models made in BAM’s office.

At the entrance, the Qingdao Garden installation is a subtle allusion to BAM’s beginnings. The Landscape Room illustrates BAM’s evolution as a practice, while the Installation Room is a tribute to the mayhem and nonsensical path BAM has traveled. In the three-sided, three-story video room is an immersive installation with projection constantly playing out the various ‘sides of BAM.’ In the video a polished propaganda story is used to entice corporate clients; this story is jarringly mixed and blended with BAM’s own fabricated history. The third projection accounts for the daily arguments, confusion, and even rage of battling cultural differences when working to design in China. Tucked away in the back corner of the gallery space is the Library, a quiet space with a bar tender serving whiskey, where people sit and read printed material that BAM has produced since the very start.

A critic of the show proclaimed, “This is not how exhibitions are supposed to be designed.” Perhaps referring to cluttered, non-minimal organization of eccentric work, “10 Years of Dumb” creates a total overwhelming environment of energy, enthusiasm... and at times seems to contain a glimmer of hope for intelligence!

BPM新闻 将弹道世界带给你 一次请只犯一个错误 全程火力!全面覆盖!

您现在观看的是BPM新闻频道

本次播报的主题是:BAM 回顾展。

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BAM “愚蠢的十年”回顾:分期介绍

经过了十年不懈的追求,BAM的展览,“愚蠢的十年”,是一个反思过去和在一个疯狂的国度中创造未来的机会。

BAM善于抓住任何机会来进行设计实践。在过去的十年里,诚然, BAM “只会说是”的愚蠢策略导致了无数的错误,但最终还是造就了一系列奇特而丰富的作品,它们看起来是不可思议的宽泛,从服装设计、游行花车、建筑立面、公园、音乐节、家具到无芯手型蜡烛。所以,这个展览呈现的是诚实的,甚至会展现BAM的逻辑错误。尽管BAM的目标是成为中国领先的设计公司,但其仍沿着各种不同道路向前进发,深入到设计的深处,犯下每一个错误。

永远不要低估愚蠢的力量... 愚蠢并不好对付... 如果你是愚蠢的 ,生活会更加艰难... 教育并不能治愈愚蠢... 人类持续愚蠢... 美丽易逝,愚智永存...

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BAM发展史

Ballistic Architecture Machine (BAM) 是由雅各布·沃克、丹尼尔·葛思和艾莉森·戴利,三位同窗好友共同创立的设计工作室,他们曾经因为创造艺术装置而差点被建筑学院开除。BAM早期对艺术装置的兴趣引导他们逐渐远离建筑并朝着景观领域发展。然而,向景观的转变并不是那么容易的。当中国的设计师和开发商把大量的精力放在建筑、艺术和工程上时,BAM却关注着建筑以外的全部空间,通过自然的概念创造和整合公共空间。这也得益于他们在玛莎·舒瓦茨事务所的工作经历,她做为景观艺术化运动的开拓者之一,对BAM的三位创始人的直接影响奠定了他们的职业历程。

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自然是个概念

BAM认为,正如人工景观是一种文化的产物,自然的定义也是在于文化。在不同的文化中,对自然是什么和自然在何处的观点有着巨大的差异。我们愈了解种种自然定义间的差异,就会愈加明显的发现,实际上自然是一个概念。随着我们文化的融合和全球化发展,将各种文化更加紧密地联系在一起,可能我们对自然的各种定义会将成为文化间唯一的差异。

我们各自对自然的定义反映在我们的城市中。无论我们是否用自然定义城市或塑造城市。无论我们是否都把城市、公园、景观看做是自然本身,或看作是构建的环境,都显示出文化是如何设计和建造它们的。无论我们是否理解自然和景观是相同的,还是认为它们有可能完全不同,都从根本上塑造了我们的建设环境。我们回答这些问题的方式是在于文化,而不是一个全球化的普遍性。

这些关于自然的本质和人类在自然界中地位的不同观点,对我们的城市环境造成了截然不同的看法,以及对城市建设中景观地位的截然不同的理解。这场展览,“愚蠢的十年”将会通过作品来阐述BAM是如何处理这些文化定义的问题,以及不同的自然的概念如何塑造我们的建设环境的。

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假装这是一个完美的过程

从2009年起,BAM在北京已经实践了10个春秋了,在这段时间里,BAM的业务及设计方法都在不断的变化和进步。BAM一直在兢兢业业的专注于工作,而中国的商业发展优势如此的迅猛,导致我们很少有时间来反思我们所做的工作以及走过的弯路。对我们来说,10年展为我们提供了一个反思的机会。除了自我反省之外,展览还有另外一个重要的方面。设计师甚至更多的建筑师都喜欢将自我及他们的工作表达为一个完美的过程。这种表达是一种伪造,一种虚构的表象,一种人造的现实,而BAM则反对这种虚假的身份。大多数建筑师仍然拘泥于现代主义信条,认为这项工作必须是独立的。然而,对于BAM来讲,工作和项目实际上并不能代表“全局”。建造的作品只是故事的一小部分,是一个更大事件的一个小片段。虽然很多作品已完成并且被建造,但是通过当代媒体的标准化镜头去观察甚至亲身去体验的时候会发现,它们的存在却缺乏塑造它们的条件。虽然这些作品常常看上去是一场视觉的盛宴,但是没有它们的故事,它们就是不完整的。好的设计,就像讲述一段美好的故事,给生活带来灵感。因此,“愚蠢的十年”将会通过文化和情感的背景来还原每个完整的项目

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展览

“愚蠢的十年” 展出的Tabula Rasa画廊是北京798艺术区内的一个典型空间。超大型的工业结构创造了一个双层挑高的宽阔空间。展览几乎填满了画廊的每一方空间,甚至包括了一些通常作为后勤的空间。3个小房间,每间都有一个独特的环境,青岛花园装置、一个名为“精神分裂”的BAM的放映室、以及一个包含了BAM学术方面作品和项目的图书室。巨大而开放的画廊空间被一分为二,形成了两个主要空间,景观展厅和装置展厅,每一个展厅的墙上都布置展示了大量项目,在显示器中展示着一些视频,而且桌子上面摆满了BAM所制作的模型。

入口空间展示着青岛花园装置,微妙的暗示了BAM的起源。紧邻着的就是景观展厅,讲述了BAM实践过程中的演变,而装置展厅则是对BAM所走过的混乱和荒谬的道路致敬。一个三面投影的放映室,像是一个置身其中的装置,在每一侧都有投影,不断的展示着BAM的方方面面,有用来吸引客户的制作精良的宣传视频,有BAM自己编造的历史,以及在中国进行设计时的日常争论、困惑,甚至是与文化差异作斗争的愤怒,这些视频不可思议的混杂在了一起。最后,藏在画廊展厅的后面,是一个安静的图书室空间,里面设置有小吧台,供应威士忌,人们可以坐下来阅读BAM多年来出品的各种刊物 。

虽然一位展览评论家宣称“这不是展览该有的设计”,显然暗指这场展览毫无章法、反常态以及不加掩饰的非极简的感觉,但是这个展览仍然创造了一个完整的、势不可挡的、充满活力和热情的环境,甚至有时似乎包含了一线对智慧的希望。这个展览在北京的798艺术区也是轰动一时。

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