Zev Deans directs a “maximalist cannon blast” music video for electronic duo Machine Girl

Dread Architect is a recent track from electronic duo Machine Girl (Matthew Stephenson and Sean Kelly) and it’s electrifying music video has been directed by Zev Deans. This is the second video Zev has created for the act, after 2024’s Psychic Attack. In the newest instalment of their collaboration, Zev continues to unravel this visual thread of bit-crushed acid chaos, building on a wider universe concocted by Matthew. Somewhat ironically, experimenting with acid is what brought Zev to video direction – “I smoked DMT, wherein these beings told me to quit my job and start making art full time,” Zev shares. “I had no film schooling.”

The video features an arch villain who doubles as an AI-forward tech CEO and computer virus, with two protagonists set out to destroy him. The narrative and characters were set in stone as part of Machine Girl’s ARG (Alternate Reality Game) Piper ARG, which was launched after the band’s 2024 tour. Matthew collaborated with Zev and was involved in the production – fuelled by creepy pasta-esque lore, and informed by anime like Berserk and Dragon Ball-Z, the Dread Architect video serves as the visual climax to this year-long story and collaboration.

“The video in particular had to match the intensity and dynamic shifts of the song, with frenetic hypersonic chaos as the general pace, later opening up into these epic breakdowns,” Zev says. The fast-paced chaos required a chopped approach. Right from the start, Zev cut up the video into many pieces, working backwards to piece the video into clear visual narratives. Matthew would later step in to work with Zev to further intensify the edit.

“This is a maximalist canon blast that gives me anxiety when I try to think back to how any of it was made,” shares Zev; the chaos of the source material seeped into his creative practice. Between blood spillage, pixel decay and sword fights, the video deploys a dizzying spectacle of cuts, colouring and effects. The boss-battle with the tech CEO shows the video’s heights as a destructive ray of multicoloured light emanates from his forehead, sending the video into electrifying overdrive. The video is wall-to-wall action, Zev says, “it’s nearly traumatic to watch the finished video for me”.

The video’s hypnotic mayhem has one unique philosophical foundation – crafting by hand. To enhance the anti-AI theme of Dread Architect, Zev hit the accelerator on the video’s physical side. He deliberately set out to work with as many handmade elements as possible, working with miniatures and stop motion artist Eris Deo. Eris created a stop motion segment, as well as props which were photographed and sent to Zev to use in the video’s environment, serving as a painstakingly built backdrop to the real stunts performed by actors and dancers. Overall, Zev concludes, “this video serves as a declaration of human effort in the face of AI.”