Peter Callas
{{short description|Australian artist, curator and writer|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{about||the American politician|Peter G. Callas}}
{{Use Australian English|date=November 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Peter Callas
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1952|05|30}}
| birth_place = Sydney, Australia
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| education = Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney
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| known_for = Video art
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Peter Callas is an Australian artist, curator and writer, particularly known for his pioneering video art using computer graphics made with the Fairlight CVI (Computer Video Instrument).Perkins, Mathew (ed), Video Void: Australian Video Art, Australian Scholarly, 2014 {{ISBN|978-1-925003-79-6}}Meigh-Andrews, Chris, A History of Video Art, second edition, Bloomsbury Publishing 2014, {{ISBN|978-0-8578-5177-2}}
Biography
After completing a B.A. at University of Sydney majoring in Fine Arts and Ancient History, Callas worked as an assistant film editor in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Callas, Peter, 'Interlaced Places: Video in Tokyo and Sydney in the Eighties', in Alessio Cavallaro, (ed), Peter Callas: Initialising History, dLuxedition.one, Sydney 1999, {{ISBN|0-646-37894-5}} Callas then studied at Sydney College of the Arts majoring in Printmaking and Sculpture'Peter Callas: Interviewed by Nicholas Zurbrugg' in Electronic Arts in Australia Zurbrugg, Nicholas (ed), Continuum, 1994 ISN 1030-4312 and began making video artworks using performance and image processing, after attending a workshop by Douglas DavisMeigh-Andrews, Chris, A History of Video Art, second edition, Bloomsbury 2014, {{ISBN|978-0-8578-5177-2}} and also seeing the work of Peter Campus for the first time.Callas, Peter, 'Interlaced Places: Video in Tokyo and Sydney in the Eighties', in Alessio Cavallaro, (ed), Peter Callas: Initialising History, dLuxedition.one, Sydney 1999, {{ISBN|0-646-37894-5}} Callas completed Singing Stone then Our Potential Allies in 1980, based on a book of the same name issued to US troop in Papua New Guinea during WW2. The work won an award in Kobe which allowed Callas to travel to Japan for the first time. He completed a number or artist residencies in Japan and the US in the 1980s including at the Marui Koendori Television/Ring World studio in the Marui Department Store, Tokyo.Cavallaro, Alessio (ed) Peter Callas: Initialising History, dLuxedition.one, Sydney 1999, {{ISBN|0-646-37894-5}} During 1994-1995 he was artist-in-residence at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe.
Key works by Callas include If Pigs Could Fly (The Media Machine) (1987), Night's High Noon: An Anti-Terrain (1988) with music by SPK, the installation Men of Vision: Lenin + Marat (1992), Neo Geo: An American Purchase (1990) with music by Stephen Vitiello and Lost in Translation (1994–99).
He has curated a number of video programs including An Eccentric Orbit: Video Art in Australia 1980 - 1994 which included works by Callas, Philip Brophy, Destiny Deacon, John Gillies, Jill Scott and Bill Seaman, and was shown at the Museum of Modern Art,https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/7313/releases/MOMA_1994_0099_69.pdf?2010 Museum of Modern Art, accessed 18 September 2017 New York and 15 venues in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia. The programme was divided into three sections: 'The Body Electric', responses to physical and psychological entrapment, and the release from that entrapment through dreams, technology and the imagination; 'Any Resemblance to Reality is Purely Deliberate', 'magical’ construction and deconstruction in or through computer culture; and 'The Diminished Paradise', examining ideas of place and placelessness.{{Cite web|url=http://scanlines.net/event/eccentric-orbit-video-art-australia-tour|title = An Eccentric Orbit: Video Art in Australia (Tour) | Scanlines}}{{Cite web |url=https://www.mca.com.au/collection/exhibition/172-an-eccentric-orbit/ |title=An Eccentric Orbit: Video Art in Australia 1980-1994 :: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia |access-date=1 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170705192429/https://www.mca.com.au/collection/exhibition/172-an-eccentric-orbit/ |archive-date=5 July 2017 |url-status=dead }}
A retrospective of his work, Peter Callas: Initialising History was presented at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1999. Screening retrospectives of his video works have been held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; and the Berlin Film Festival.http://videoartchive.org.au/pcallas/ Australian Video Art Archive, accessed 8 September 2017 The retrospective, Peter Callas: The Invisible Histories of the Present, at Millenáris Park, Budapest, 2006, was held across two galleries and showed 20 moving images works simultaneously along with a comprehensive collection of his prints. His videos have also been screened on television stations including BBC2, London; Canal +, Paris; SAT.1, Cologne; WGBH-TV, Boston; NHK Satellite, Tokyo; Televisión Española, Madrid; and the ARS TV NETWORK, European Satellite TV Channel, Rome.http://videoartchive.org.au/pcallas/ Australian Video Art Archive, accessed 18 September 2017
References
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External links
- [http://scanlines.net/node/1963 Scanlines: Media Art in Australia since the 1960s, Peter Callas]
- {{IMDb name|0130331|Peter Callas}}
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