DeFilo
2023
SPRING 2023.
AN ACOUSTIC MEMORY AS A COUNTERPOINT TO 150 YEARS OF INDUSTRIAL THREAD.
Linificio e Canapificio Nazionale is one of Europe’s oldest spinning mills, founded in 1873 in Villa d’Almè (Bergamo) and today a world leader in the production of linen and hemp yarns. For its 150th anniversary, as part of Bergamo-Brescia Italian Capital of Culture 2023, the company hosted DE FILO – a major exhibition of international textile and contemporary art featuring 26 artists, winner of the Premio Cultura+Impresa 2024, selected for the ADI Design Index 2024 and shortlisted for the Compasso d’Oro 2026.
Commissioned by NT Next, we curated the exhibition’s only sonic work: Allineamenti.
Allineamenti closes the exhibition’s multisensory journey as the ultimate form of dematerialised artistic expression: a sound work combining field recording, layering and manipulation of the factory’s industrial sounds, giving its spaces an entirely new acoustic memory.
Within Allineamenti, the raw, organic sounds of linen processing come to life, transforming into a site-specific musical composition born directly from the spaces of DeFilo.
Through a meticulous process of recording, layering, and manipulating sounds collected inside Linificio, Matteo Rigamonti and Giorgio Assi craft a sonic narrative that mirrors the transformation of linen itself—from raw, scattered elements to structured rhythm and texture. The sounds subtly shift, moving in and out of sync, gradually aligning through sonic manipulation, much like how fibers are refined and twisted into thread during the spinning process.
Two listening stations guide visitors through different stages of this process, where industrial production and musical composition become one and the same:
From the first raw, disconnected noises…
To the gradual emergence of rhythm and texture, shaped through alignment and divergence…
Until the composition takes full shape—only to unwind again into raw sound.
This cyclical journey repeats every 8 and a half minutes—a living, breathing thread that continuously aligns and realigns, mirroring the rhythm of both weaving and sound.
