Neo Geo: An American Purchase

1989, 9:17 min, color, sound

Produced during a year-long residency in New York, Neo Geo is a vivid portrayal of the contemporary American cultural landscape. Constructed as a fragmented and dislocated terrain embedded with emblematic imagery, Callas' dark vision of cultural memory is inscribed with symbols of violence, money, war, and jingoistic bravado. American stereotypes (Uncle Sam, cowboys, Smokey the Bear) collide with a progression of nightmare images (Oswald, the Ku Klux Klan, nuclear warheads), all vibrantly redrawn, layered and processed on a Fairlight CVI computer graphic system. This dynamic, hyperactive barrage of visual information assumes new meaning as an intricate language of cultural identity.

Music: Stephen Vitiello, John Zorn. CMX Editor: Rick Feist. Playback Editors: Joe De Pierro, Marshall Reese.