All Things Visual: The University of Chicago Visual Resources Center

For his project Vanishing Cultures, photographer Dennis Manarchy is traveling around the country documenting various cultures with a one-of-a-kind, 35-foot-long camera called “Eye of America”. Styled like an old fashioned large format camera, it’s so large that a person can work comfortably inside it. The negatives measure 6×4.5 feet, and are so large that windows must be used as lightboxes to examine them. The detail in a portrait subjects’ eyeball alone is a thousand times greater than what you get with the average negative. Resulting portraits will be featured on prints 2 stories tall.

Via PetaPixel. See their article for a video introducing the camera and a video introducing the project.

Early silent films recently discovered in the New Zealand Film Archive are returning to the United States for preservation under the guidance of the National Film Preservation Foundation. About seventy-five films were chosen because of their historical significance, including John Ford’s Upstream and a Clara Bow period drama. Shipment and preservation of the films has been difficult and time-consuming; most are printed on highly-flammable nitrate film and are already in advanced stages of deterioration. Preserved films will eventually be made public as streaming videos on the foundation’s website. For more information, see this article from the New York Times.

Neshat uses various visual mediums to create artwork that, at its core, represents the resilient and rebellious spirit of women.

Iranian-American visual artist Shirin Neshat was featured on yesterday’s National Public Radio broadcast of All Things Considered. Neshat’s new film, Zanan-e bedun-e mardan (Women Without Men) is now in theaters across the United States, and the artist’s eponymous new book was also recently released with a foreword by Marina Abramovic.

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