Lavoro Macchinine

_Lavoro Macchinine_ is a collaboration between Alexis Grey Hildreth (moving image) and Ora Cogan (sound) that deconstructs the opening credits and reimagines the musical overture in the title sequence from the Italian period drama _Il Gattopardo_ (1963).

_Lavoro Macchinine_ occults the film's original static text with a mercurial, kinetic typography, built from the very glyphs it is at pains to obfuscate. Through gestation, approximation, replication, and assimilation; _Lavoro Macchinine_ discovers its own alien properties of form and behaviour, while simultaneously exploring the boundaries of its cinematic environment.

The living word produced by _Lavoro Macchinine_ is propelled and propagated by a hunger for, and the digestion of, _Il Gatopardo_'s diegetic space. It longs to hide within it; to become part of it. The building blocks of language are hijacked: letterforms bifurcate in an imitation of manor gates, logographs elongate into fragile towers, conveyor belts composed of graphemes disseminate across the laneway, ligatures roll out of ideograms to scrutinize Roman busts, alien marginalia breach the balustrade, cedilla scrupulously scale the villa walls, extraterrestrial dingbats lodge themselves into the ruins of a world that no longer exists, ogonek laden emissaries probe the cinemascape in order to become it; to become us.

  • Alexis Grey Hildreth
    Moving Image
  • Ora Cogan
    Sound
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Short, Other
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 29 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 14, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography

Alexis is a multidisciplinary artist from the Pacific Northwest. In 2014 he received a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and in 2017 completed an MFA from the University of Waterloo. In 2016 Alexis traveled to England to work with Iain Ball as a recipient of the Keith and Win Shantz Fellowship. Alexis' work revolves around boundaries, barriers, and thresholds. He is invested in the relationship between internal and external geography, the balance of terror and awe, and with mapping the transition from one state of consciousness into another. Alexis has held a plethora of jobs; from innkeeper to nightwatchmen, from shepherd to security guard, from grocer to gardener.

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