Series: New Television
Program: New Television
Episode: 609
Date: 1989-01-01
Subject: Animation; Popular culture - United States
People: Callas, Peter
Copyright Holder: Peter Callas

Clip Description
"Produced by Australian artist Peter Callas while living in New York City, ‘Neo Geo' is a hand-drawn video portrait of the contemporary American cultural landscape. National stereotypes -- Uncle Sam, cowboys, Smokey the Bear, and a progression of nightmare images are all vividly redrawn, layered, and processed to bring to the surface the darkness that lies in American cultural memory, inscribed as it often is with symbols of money, violence, and jingoistic bravado." -- WGBH press release

"Rolling" by Stephen Vitiello and "Battle of Algiers" by John Zorn provide musical accompaniment for the work.

The piece was created while Callas was engaged in residencies with the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of Australian Council, P.S. 1 -- Institute of Art and Urban Resources, the Experimental Television Center, and The Video Synthesis Studio. The Fairlight CVI Computer Graphic System was used.

The piece is approximately nine minutes long and was broadcast as a segment of episode 609 (1990) of "New Television."

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Neo213.HTML