Kim McLean

Liner Notes for Fokker Night Blue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fokker Night Blue is in part influenced by Bernice Abbot’s beautiful photograph Downtown Skyport which depicts seaplanes parked along the East River in New York City casually waiting, divorced from a near distant urban humdrum. The planes are stylish, almost cartoonish in their futurist languor, and I was drawn to the photo’s composition. By the time work began on Fokker Night Blue, however, I’d found a plane more my style in the Fokker F.VII. There were only five of them built but the plane had multiple incarnations including the most familiar tri-motor version and the Friendship F.VII/3m on floats which flew Amelia Earhart over the Atlantic. Evidently, the plane arouses more interest elsewhere than here. Ten times more international visitors click F.VII link than Americans do.

I found  plans for the F.7 making it easier to construct the model for the iconic plane. Like all elements in the pictures, modeling occurs within the software environment, FormZ. In this case, I could trace over an underlay to get top and side views, but the ribs and air foils are drawn as best as could be interpolated. An element at a time, the structure begins to take shape and a “skin” is digitally stretched over the 2D cross-sections. The 3D drawing evolves and images are applied until they fit and the model attains a particularly convincing level of reality  (please see the section, Making / Creating). I use the Greene County phone book images frequently, thinking it makes us appear like the center of the universe or something along the same lines. I like the idea that constructed images are made of the citizenry’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. Thornton Wilder does something similar in Our Town when Rebecca tells George about the letter Jane got from her minister addressed as: “Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God.” The notion boils life down to its essential elements, or boils it up, depending on how you’re feeling at the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

Born in 1853, Vladimir Grigoryevich Shukhov was a pioneering engineer/architect renowned for doubly-curved structural forms known as hyperboloids of revolution. Often referred to as the Russian Edison, his mathematics  were instrumental in the construction of pipelines, oil tankers and many graceful constructions across Russia including a magnificent radio tower located a few miles south of the Moscow Kremlin. There’s currently a grass roots movement to save the tower from destruction.

The curved, organic illusion the structure assumes is a bit enigmatic as all the rods are straight (refer to classic American string art as an immediate way to observe a similar phenomena).

The Shukov links on this site are frequently clicked equally between international and American visitors. It’s evident that his work is still very much alive.

The House of Cards is an engineering marvel in its own right. Apart from its fantastic structural attributes, my interest in the  image derives partially from the movie “House of Games”.  As you may (or not) imagine, the plot revolves around a handsome female shrink and her encounters with Joe Montegna’s petit crime ring. Confounded by deft card tricks and legerdemain, David Mamet’s screenplay renders her unable to distinguish between truth and deception and ultimately, uncertain who she is.  After all is said and the deeds are done, the question remains: Is belief enough to dispel the lies and keep the house standing?

In the Manchurian Candidate, Raymond Shaw thinks not – knows not. In fact, he’s been brainwashed. His evil mother (Angela Lansbury), consumed by a political ambition making martial law seem like anarchy,  has him on remote control using  the queen of diamonds as a transmitter. Frank Sinatra, himself a p.o.w. who’s experienced the same tortures as Lawernce Harvey’s character, recognizes that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Check out the scene in The Manchurian Candidate after Shaw plays solitaire with a deck of cards with not one, but 52 queens of diamonds. Fireworks (1962 version only please)!!!

Fokker Night Blue’s house of cards is constructed only of queens of diamonds from seven decks of cards. How different they are and the same all at once! Looking carefully, the cards are all warped planes. This is, in a nutshell, the crux of the biscuit when it comes to alternate realities seen through the eyes of a Hudson, NY teenager leaving the theater with her girlfriend just after seeing Titanic. “That looked so real you think it could have really happened”.