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The video is based on a scene from Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point (1970), which deals with a heated meeting of student activists. Billings' adaptation, however, is set in contemporary Sweden and shows a group of young people who seem to be just waiting for something to happen - completely passive, avoiding any kind of communication or emotion. The revolutionary tension that can still be felt in Antonioni's work, influenced by the spirit of 1968, has diminished, giving way to a feeling of boredom. The looped playback of the video reinforces the perception of this inactivity. The silence and the feeling of infinity are only broken by the sound of the copying machine. What the machine outputs, however, are not flyers but only white sheets of paper.
"The generation of our parents brought the revolution. They did everything for us and taught us that we need not to worry about anything."
Conceptual artist Johanna Billing, born 1973 in Jönköping (SE), lives and works in Stockholm.
Video:
Project for a Revolution (2000)
DVD 3 min 14 s
The Video is shown in Loop-Modus , as the artist intended.
Cinematography: Johan Phillips & Henry Moore Selder
Sound: Mario Adamsson
Photography: Johanna Löwenhamn