Night's High Noon; An Anti-Terrain

Night's High Noon; An Anti-Terrain

Peter Callas
1988, 7:26 min, color, sound

Description

Night's High Noon is a powerful visual portrayal of the memories sublimated in the cultural construction of contemporary Australian identity. Each pictorial "scene" is constructed of three layers of iconic images, creating a complex "emblematic landscape" that is at odds with the "information landscape." Intricate image-fields, pulsing with constant motion and saturated color, describe complex collective memories as nightmarish visions. To a haunting musical score, Callas visualizes the linguistic and totemistic heritage of white and aboriginal cultures in Australia. His distinctive layering techniques create a pictorial space that is simultaneously flat and multi-dimensional, a dynamic visual contrast to the conventional illusionism of television graphics.

Music: Graeme Revell. Technical Editor: Gavin Miljkovich.