TELEGRAPH

In a surreal version of 1830s France, an isolated telegraph operator clocks in for another endless day of watching messages transmitted through semaphore. It doesn’t take long for him to go completely insane.

Credits / Collaborators / Cast

Operator – Akil Kirlew
Dancer – Iren Kamyshev, Cheryl Rosario

Director – Cooper Troxell
Producer – Evangeline Graham
DP – John Henri Coene
Choreographer – Sara da Silva
Costume Designer – Grace Troxell
Editor – Garrett McDonald
Producer/1st AD – Harry Bartle
Location Scout – Claudio Roque
Associate Producer – Oliver Hudd
VFX Supervisor – Sam Engel

The story behind the film

I have been fixated recently on the optical telegraph, invented in France in the 1830s, as the birth of a relationship between information technology and the human body. In this system, the message controls the messenger, who simply becomes an appendage to move it along. Perhaps the the flood of information and misinformation in our lives began in the first moments of the Information Age. And perhaps by recognizing the shapes it creates, we can become free.

Guided by the symbols used in inventor Claude Chappe’s original codebook, we developed a movement system that contorts the body as information moves through it.

FILM DETAILS

Genre: Experimental / Narrative
Country: USA
Language: English
Length in minutes: 3
YEAR: 2024