McLain Clutter

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March 03, 2006

Film Noir and The Planner's Documentary

One more entry from last semester...this paper was for a film seminar i took on post-war landscapes. I also submitted it for my MED committee review at the end of the semester. The page numbers start on 11–I've ommitted the first ten pages since they were a lenghty bibliography for my larger project.

I doubt anyone will actually have the patience to read this, but here it is...

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Posted by mclutter at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)

Dream Maps of New York City

Also last semester...I was trying to find ways to map real relationships between NYC film shoot locations and urban development. These maps are made using point-locations of over 3000 establishing shots from several hundred different films set in New York. The graduated color map of Manhattan (shown in white to red)is based on the intensity of population change by decade (1970-1980, 1980-1990). The 3-d graph on top of those mappings have height sources based on the normalized box-office revenues of films shot on their corresponding locations in Manhattan.

These drawings are made from a GIS model, so the real value is in having a simulation that I can continue to develop and query throughout the course of my research.

Posted by mclutter at 05:41 PM | Comments (0)

A reconfigured vision machine

Well, spring break begins today, so I guess I'll finish posting some of my work from last semester. I took a fabrication class, just to have an opportunity to get my hands on Yales many various CNC machines. This piece was made using a medium 3-axis router and one of our giant water-jet cutters. The materials are 1/4" thick stainless steel plate and american walnut slab. The final product measures about 2'x4'.

The pattern for the stainless steel screen was directly sampled from an Albrecht Durer woodcut, and the height source for the wood surround was derived from calculations based on the same engraving. I've been fascinated by this old woodcut for years...as has just about any other architect with research interests in representation. The idea here is to play the implicit pictorial depth within the original wood cut against the deep space visible through the screen, as well as the shallow surface relief in the wood surround. Its supposed to be a reconfigured version of Durer's perspective machine–illustrated in the original woodcut.

The piece is going to be in a show of digital fabrication going on here at the SOA. I'll post some images of the whole show once its installed.

Posted by mclutter at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)