ABSTRACT
In The Architecture Machine (1970), Nicholas Negroponte comments a photographic record of a busy crossroads in a city in the following way: “In this case the simulation is the real world, the best model but the most expensive. Similar displays will soon be manageable by computers.” I interpret the moving-image camera as the “machine” that can observe the performance of an everyday environment. I posit that fiction films provide us with useful perceptual tools to grasp complex urban phenomena. In order to elicit the mechanisms that make up the projected image of city films, I have devised new analytical tools. Using examples, in this chapter I demonstrate how cinema as well as observational film techniques can usefully complement urban simulation models, highlighting the importance of arts and humanities research in mediating and humanizing often highly technical/scientific approaches.
