Camera displayed
The 35-foot long by 12-foot tall camera for the Butterflies and Buffalo project will be on display through Nov. 17 outside the Green County Courthouse. A photography exhibit introducing viewers to Manarchy's work with "lost cultures" will be open inside the Courthouse 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays through Nov. 15, with additional exhibit hours on weekends.
Learn more about the camera, the photographer, and the Butterflies and Buffalo project at the website butterfliesandbuffalo.com. For details on the camera's visit to Monroe and photography exhibit hours, visit greencounty.org or call Green County Tourism at 888-222-9111.
MONROE - A film camera called the world's largest sat shining in the sunlight Sunday, Nov. 3 on the Green County Courthouse Square, where it will be on display for the next two weeks before starting its two-year journey around the United States to capture in minute detail the essence of America's fading cultures.
The camera is the center of attention right now for "Butterflies and Buffalo," a project to document and celebrate America's cultures with what is "probably the last film project in history," according to Chicago photographer Dennis Manarchy, the project developer.
Monroe is the birthplace of the camera - it's where its body baffles and the trailer it sits on were designed and manufactured - and "will always be the home of the camera," Manarchy said Sunday to an audience that filled the former courtroom during an opening reception.
By the end of the camera's 20,000 miles journey, America will be "celebrating the 200th anniversary of the camera," said Manarchy, "and the end of some of our cultures."
In the second phase of the project, Manarchy and the camera will be going to some of the most remote areas in the county, where pockets of different American cultures have been isolated, "not yet swallowed up" by modern culture but left to retain their customs and traditions in their most primitive states.
"That's why the camera is on wheels," Manarchy said.
The project is committed to 50 cultures already, according to Manarchy. Among the "last vestiges of American culture" he noted were the Cajun and Creole; Blues artists; five distinct American Indians, including Pine Ridge Sioux; Appalachians; farmers and ranchers; WWII veterans; Amish; Eskimos; and more.
But finding some of these vanishing cultures, which often have few remaining people, is like "a search for a needle in a haystack," he said, and he is interested in more suggestions, wherever people may find them.
What Manarchy is hoping to capture on film are not the people scrubbed clean and in Sunday dress but, rather, their "work faces" at end of the day.
The end result of the project will be two-story tall portraits and supplemental documentary films for both a permanent home and a traveling exhibit using tents as large as 50,000 square feet.
Manarchy is planning the project displays to be environmental creations that will surround the visitor with an experience of the culture, including its and social concepts, and enhance their attention of the 97 gigapixel photographs that will have "the highest level of clarity." The clarity is so high that the photos will reveal details normally not seen by the unaided human eye.
Manarchy said modern technology will be used to create, for example, a rainy, foggy day without getting visitors wet or a hologram pathway into a Blues singer's mouth to feel his breath and the vibrations of his music. In other displays, real people may be gathered to do their crafts, such as a group of gospel singing women quilters.
The camera is the center of attention right now for "Butterflies and Buffalo," a project to document and celebrate America's cultures with what is "probably the last film project in history," according to Chicago photographer Dennis Manarchy, the project developer.
Monroe is the birthplace of the camera - it's where its body baffles and the trailer it sits on were designed and manufactured - and "will always be the home of the camera," Manarchy said Sunday to an audience that filled the former courtroom during an opening reception.
By the end of the camera's 20,000 miles journey, America will be "celebrating the 200th anniversary of the camera," said Manarchy, "and the end of some of our cultures."
In the second phase of the project, Manarchy and the camera will be going to some of the most remote areas in the county, where pockets of different American cultures have been isolated, "not yet swallowed up" by modern culture but left to retain their customs and traditions in their most primitive states.
"That's why the camera is on wheels," Manarchy said.
The project is committed to 50 cultures already, according to Manarchy. Among the "last vestiges of American culture" he noted were the Cajun and Creole; Blues artists; five distinct American Indians, including Pine Ridge Sioux; Appalachians; farmers and ranchers; WWII veterans; Amish; Eskimos; and more.
But finding some of these vanishing cultures, which often have few remaining people, is like "a search for a needle in a haystack," he said, and he is interested in more suggestions, wherever people may find them.
What Manarchy is hoping to capture on film are not the people scrubbed clean and in Sunday dress but, rather, their "work faces" at end of the day.
The end result of the project will be two-story tall portraits and supplemental documentary films for both a permanent home and a traveling exhibit using tents as large as 50,000 square feet.
Manarchy is planning the project displays to be environmental creations that will surround the visitor with an experience of the culture, including its and social concepts, and enhance their attention of the 97 gigapixel photographs that will have "the highest level of clarity." The clarity is so high that the photos will reveal details normally not seen by the unaided human eye.
Manarchy said modern technology will be used to create, for example, a rainy, foggy day without getting visitors wet or a hologram pathway into a Blues singer's mouth to feel his breath and the vibrations of his music. In other displays, real people may be gathered to do their crafts, such as a group of gospel singing women quilters.