Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Dundee Contemporary Arts



LOOK BEHIND US, A BLUE SKY

Johanna Billing

Support for the exhibition in Basel and its accompanying publication has been provided by the “Fonds für künstlerische Aktivitäten im Museum für Gegenwartskunst der Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung und der Christoph Merian Stiftung”

Die Ausstellung in Basel und die Publikation wurden unterstützt vom »Fonds für künstlerische Aktivitäten im Museum für Gegenwartskunst der Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung und der Christoph Merian Stiftung«   

Expanded Footnotes CONTENTS INHALTSVERZEICHNIS Projects for Revolution Radio Days; Tour Diary Perfect Pop Pleasures Lightning Never Strikes Here 9 Rob Tufnell Johanna Billing, Helena Jacob Wren Anymore… 92 Holmberg, Annie 178 Karl Holmqvist Fletcher, Tanja Elstgeest, Waiting for Billing and Frédérique Bergholtz Pass the Glue Making †ings Happen 12 Making †ings Happen Maria Lind 126 Volker Zander Polly Staple Polly Staple 103 180 You Make Me Digress More Films about Songs, 40 More Films about Songs, Some Notes on Billing, Åbäke †e Lights Go out, Cities & Circles Cities & Circles Stein, and Repetition 150 the Moon Wanes A Conversation between Ein Gespräch zwischen Malin Ståhl Anne Tallentire Johanna Billing & Helena Selder Johanna Billing & Helena Selder 108 More Texts about Songs 185 & Buildings Forever Changes 70 Forever Changes Getting †ere Magnus Haglund A Possible Trilogy A Conversation between Ein Gespräch zwischen Chen Tamir 155 Jelena Vesie Johanna Billing & Philipp Kaiser Johanna Billing & Philipp Kaiser 112 192 Regarding Us Editing Is Musical Cecilia Canziani City Dwellers and Seafarers Carole Bertinet 166 Kate Stancliffe 114 202 Who’s Going to Finish It? Everyday I Am Everyday Ivet Eurlin of What, †e Familiar Unknown Séamus Kealy Where and for Lisa Panting 120 Whom / WHW 207 170 †e Secret Cousin Let’s Go Swimming Jonatham Lethem Sentimental Season James †omas 122 Mika Hannula 214 173

Works & Projects 218 Werke & Projekte

Biography & Bibliography 239 Biografie & Bibliografie

Colophon 250 Impressum   Lightning Never Strikes Here Anymore…

Karl Holmqvist

Most of Johanna Billing’s videoworks of the last few years are meant to be seen as projections repeated in ‘endless’ loops, repeated incessantly like mild obsessions staying on in one’s memory. †ere is a search for a thing, an image or phenomenon. Not a song, but the memory of a song, the lyrics of a song with a band rehearsing. †ese are images of learning processes and people figuring out how to do something together, to get it right, with the action on the screen somehow reflecting what will have gone on ‘in reality’ in front of the camera. Captured are learning experiences or experiments, if you will, telling us that just as this has happened it might as well happen again, in the same way, in a different place, or a different way. Nothing is impossible or possible, except maybe in your mind. †e fiction will have become a fantasy, and somehow you will find yourself right in the middle of it. And there you go.

Where She Is at, production still, Ingierstrand, 2001

(overleaf) Where She Is at, installation view, Free Electrons, Tabacalera, Donostia-San Sebástian 2007 10 12 13 Making †ings Happen

Polly Staple In Johanna Billing’s video Where In Johanna Billings Video Where She Is She Is at (2001) a girl poses on a at (2001) steht ein Mädchen auf einem high diving board. Her whole hohen Sprungbrett. Ihr ganzer Körper body is tense. She is fidgeting wirkt in seiner Drehung angespannt, voller and despondent, consumed by Nervosität und Mutlosigkeit. Sie befindet a chronic state of indecision. sich in einem chronischen Zustand der To jump or not to jump becomes an Unentschlossenheit. Ob sie nun springen epic quandary. †e girl’s internal soll oder nicht, wird zu einem epischen dilemma is in sharp contrast to the Dilemma. Der innere Konflikt des otherwise picturesque scene: sunny Mädchens steht in scharfem Kontrast zu day, open air, water’s edge. der sonst pittoresken Szene, die sich an †e girl is pretty, and sturdy, einem sonnigen Tag in freier Natur am wearing a lightly fashionable print Rande des Wassers abspielt. bikini. Footage of the girl is inter- Das hübsche, kräftige Mädchen cut with other people who patiently trägt einen nur bedingt modischen, watch and wait. †ere is a crisp gemusterten Bikini. Die Figur des photographic composition to the Mädchens wird von anderen Personen shots and the sound is reduced teilweise verdeckt, die geduldig to a benign background noise of schauen und warten. Die Aufnahmen splashing and seagulls. †e placid weisen eine klare fotografische atmosphere only adds perversely Komposition auf und werden nur mit to the tension. †e scene slowly dezenten Hintergrundgeräuschen becomes intolerable. Eventually, von plätscherndem Wasser und she jumps. Seemöwengeschrei untermalt. Die ruhige, If Where She Is at functions friedvolle Atmosphäre steigert jedoch as both a study of the debilitating nur noch die Spannung. Die Szene wird frustrations of performance anxiety langsam unerträglich. Und dann endlich and as a symbolic metaphor for springt sie. individual action, then Graduate Während Where She Is at sowohl als Show (1999), made several years Studie der kräfte- und nervenzehrenden earlier, presents an alternative Angst vor einer missglückten Vorstellung scenario of collective production. wie auch als symbolische Metapher für A group of young people, dressed individuelles Handeln fungiert, stellt die in an assortment of exercise einige Jahre früher entstandene Arbeit Where She Is at, production still, Ingierstrand, 2001 clothes, assemble in a studio and Graduate Show (1999) ein alternatives perform a choreographed dance Szenario einer Gemeinschaftsproduktion 14 Making †ings Happen 15 band ESG is excellent, and it keeps sind jedoch fesselnd. Der Soundtrack, things moving. »Moody« (1981) von der legendären Art schools are hothouse New Yorker Tanz-Punk-Band ESG, ist environments. Everyone strives to vorzüglich und hält die Dinge define their own voice, combining in Bewegung. fierce competition to be unique In den Kunsthochschulen herrscht with an intense pressure to eine Treibhausatmosphäre. Jeder bemüht perform. Graduate Show is sich, den eigenen Ausdruck besonders Billing’s response to a complex hervorzuheben, und tritt bei diesem situation, a deft action operating Streben um Einzigartigkeit in einen on both real and symbolic levels. scharfen Konkurrenzkampf mit den As a community project, it anderen, steht gleichzeitig aber auch brings a potentially conflicted unter dem starken Druck, seine Aufgabe group of individuals together. zu erfüllen. Graduate Show ist Billings †e choreography is not so simple Antwort auf eine komplexe Situation, and requires group commitment to eine geschickte Massnahme auf der make it work. †e subsequent piece realen wie der symbolischen Ebene is performed in an atmosphere of gleichermassen. Als Gemeinschaftsprojekt concentration and celebration. bringt sie eine potenzielle Konfliktgruppe In Graduate Show, the vagaries von Individuen zusammen, die of individual expression—here Choreografie ist nicht so einfach, und das

Graduate Show, video stills, 1999

routine. †e participants are dar. Eine Gruppe von jungen Menschen Billing’s fellow graduate students in Trainingskleidung kommt in einem from Konstfack University College Studio zusammen und führt eine of Arts, Crafts and Design, Tanzchoreografie auf. Die Teilnehmer Stockholm, and Billing dances sind Billings ehemalige Studienkollegen alongside them. †e performers are von der Konstfack University College of exuberant, awkward or just not very Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, good. †e filming and the group’s und Billing tanzt neben ihnen her. Die cohesion, their desire to put on a Tänzer sind ausgelassen, unbeholfen oder show is, however, arresting. †e aber auch nicht besonders gut. Das Filmen Graduate Show, installation view, Graduation Show, Konstfack, soundtrack “Moody” (1981) by the und der Zusammenhalt der Gruppe, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, 1999 legendary New York dance-punk ihr Wunsch, eine Schau abzuziehen, 16 Making †ings Happen 17 exemplified by rhythm and Gelingen erfordert von der Gruppe use of a historically or socially der Gruppe spielt. Zweitens lassen dance—are productively shown to gemeinschaftliches Engagement. resonant location combined with sich eine ausgeprägte Klarheit bei der work together and to be seemingly Das nachfolgende Stück wird in an equally loaded choice of music. Kameraarbeit sowie klare Schnitte satisfactory for all involved. einer konzentrierten und feierlichen In Graduate Show, for example, feststellen – was man am besten als Examining Graduate Show Atmosphäre aufgeführt. the pedagogical aura of the art filmisch-kunstdokumentarische Mischung for a moment longer, it is possible In Graduate Show werden die school is pitched against the more beschreiben könnte –, die einen Inhalt to discern a number of formats and verschiedenen Facetten individuellen rapaciously aspirant desire of the und eine Stimmung vermitteln, die scenarios consistently developed Ausdrucks – hier veranschaulicht talent show and the cult status of irgendwo zwischen dem realen Leben und in subsequent works. It includes, durch Rhythmus und Tanz – in einer ESG’s soundtrack. Fiktion angesiedelt sind. Und drittens for example, the use of arrival, fruchtbaren Synthese zusammengeführt †e opening ‘arrival’ die Verwendung eines mit historischen learning, and becoming as both und dies offensichtlich zur Zufriedenheit sequence of Graduate Show—where oder gesellschaftlichen Konnotationen motif and dramatic device most aller Beteiligten. students run down corridors and besetzten Schauplatzes in Kombination staircases to reach the studio— mit einer ebenso bedeutungsgeladenen has much in common with the Musikauswahl. In Graduate Show assembling of participants for zum Beispiel wird die pädagogische Billing’s more well-known video Atmosphäre der Kunsthochschule dem piece You Don’t Love Me Yet so gierigen Wunsch nach der Talentshow (2003). In the latter, an individual und dem Soundtrack der Band ESG mit is filmed going up an escalator Kultstatus gegenübergestellt. to arrive at a recording studio Die Eröffnungs-»Ankunfts«- in Stockholm where he joins Sequenz von Graduate Show – die forty other musicians to perform Studenten rennen die Gänge entlang und the eponymous track. A similar die Treppen hinunter, um zum Studio zu narrative plot device is used in Look gelangen – hat viel gemeinsam mit dem out! (2003). Here, a group arrives at Versammeln der Teilnehmer für Billings a luxury apartment development bekanntere Videoarbeit You Don’t Love Me

Coming up, trailer, installation view, Graduation Show, Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, 1999 often witnessed through a group Nimmt man Graduate Show assembling to perform, or the etwas länger in Augenschein, so individual taking their place and kann man eine Reihe von Formaten performing a role within the und Szenarios erkennen, die in group. Secondly, there is a distinct nachfolgenden Werken konsequent clarity to the camera work and entwickelt werden. Beispielsweise die smooth editing—what could best Ankunft, die gleichermassen Motiv be described as a cinematic-art- und Schauspieldevise wird, für die documentary hybrid—conveying zumeist eine Gruppe steht, die für eine a content and tone pitched Aufführung zusammenkommt, oder somewhere between real life and aber eine Einzelperson, die deren Platz Project for a Revolution, installation view, Project 1, fiction. And thirdly, there is the einnimmt und eine Rolle innerhalb Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, 2002 18 Making †ings Happen 19

(clockwise from top left) Project for a Revolution and Missing out, installation view, Intentional Communities, CAC, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, 2001

Magic & Loss, video still, 2005

Missing out, video still, 2001

(right) Magic & Loss, production still, 2005 in East London to be shown Yet (2003). In Letzterem wird ein Mann round; In Magic & Loss (2005), dabei gefilmt, wie er eine Rolltreppe a group arrives at an apartment hinunter zu einem Aufnahmestudio in in Amsterdam and proceeds to Stockholm geht, wo er mit 40 weiteren pack up the contents. In Magical Musikern zusammenkommt und den World (2005), the performance Titelsoundtrack einspielt. Ein ähnlicher of—again—the eponymous song Handlungsablauf findet auch inLook out! by a group of children is inter-cut (2003) Anwendung: Hier kommt eine with scenes of them arriving at the Gruppe von Leuten zu einer Siedlung cultural center in Zagreb in which mit Luxuswohnungen im Osten Londons the rehearsal takes place. und wird herumgeführt; in Magic & Loss In each case, the group (2005) kommt eine Gruppe von Leuten in gathers and engages in a process eine Wohnung in Amsterdam und schickt or act of transformation. Making sich an, deren Inhalt zusammenzupacken; something happen, or conversely und in Magical World (2005) singt eine not happen, is used as both device Gruppe von Kindern – auch hier wieder and theme. In two early films – den Titelsong, unterbrochen von Project for a Revolution (2000) and Szenen, die sie bei ihrer Ankunft im Missing out (2001), for example, Kulturzentrum von Zagreb zeigen, wo die both plot and content hinge on the Proben stattfinden. 20 Making †ings Happen 21 gathering of protagonists caught in In jedem dieser Fälle kommt eine simplicity of form. †is oscillation Rhythmus der Schnitte. Billing verwendet a moment of waiting, preoccupied Gruppe von Leuten zusammen und hat between surface and depth creates immer konventionelle narrative Muster by non-activity. Alternatively, Anteil an einem Verwandlungsprozess. a visual tension and emphasizes und filmische Strategien zum Aufbau in Magic & Loss, the group is Etwas geschehen oder auch nicht the relational complexities of the einer Szene: sorgfältig in Szene gesetzte, methodically absorbed, occupied geschehen zu lassen, wird gleichermassen conceptual content. lange Einstellungen mit schwungvoller with boxing up the contents of an sinnbildhaft und thematisch verwandt. Billing often uses high Bewegung, die beispielsweise eine apartment. In each instance, the In den beiden frühen Filmen Project for a definition video. †is digital Ankunft andeutet. Doch auf diese folgt non-action/action, the waiting Revolution (2000) und Missing out (2001) medium has a deadpan quality immer eine schwerfällige Abfolge von and the packing, are relayed by zum Beispiel drehen sich sowohl der to its image resolution and a Vollbildgrossaufnahmen eines besonderen Billing in great visual detail: a man Handlungsablauf als auch der Inhalt um flexibility to its manufacture which Lichtspiels auf einer Oberfläche, einem glances aside, a woman shuffles das Zusammentreffen der Protagonisten, is entirely contemporary. †is is Gesicht oder einem Objekt. Billings in her seat, or a man takes books die in einem Moment des Wartens erfasst in contrast to the more precious akribisch komponierte Filmtechnik off a shelf, puts the books in a sind, völlig in Anspruch genommen von materiality and, hence, fetishistic, erzielt eine wundervoll leuchtende box, tapes up the box, and so ihrer Untätigkeit. Als Alternative dazu dreamlike potential of 16mm or Einfachheit der Form. Dieses Oszillieren on. †ese small details, this slow werden die Akteure in Magic & Loss 35mm often employed by others to zwischen Oberfläche und Tiefe schafft accumulation of information, the mit dem Einpacken des Hausrates einer create a self-consciously high art ein visuelles Spannungsverhältnis und gestures and nuances between Wohnung systematisch beschäftigt. In effect. †e presentation of Billing’s betont die Vielschichtigkeit der Bezüge des people and things, become the jedem Fall sind das Nicht-Handeln und films in open gallery settings on konzeptuellen Inhalts. narrative drive, and also creates das Handeln – das heisst hier das Warten freestanding screens also resists Billing verwendet häufig das specific atmosphere. †e waiting, und das Packen – von Billing mit grosser cinematic overtones. †is method Videoformat HDV (High Definition in Project for a Revolution, and the visueller Detailgenauigkeit wiedergegeben: of display creates a walk through Video). Dieses digitale Medium schöpft work, in Magic & Loss, are equally Ein Mann blickt flüchtig zur Seite, eine encounter, more attuned to the bezüglich seiner Bildauflösung nicht sein monotonous and repetitive, Frau rutscht auf ihrem Stuhl hin und her, sculptural conventions of the white ganzes Potenzial aus und ermöglicht but also as carefully organized oder ein Mann nimmt Bücher von einem cube as opposed to those of the gleichzeitig eine Flexibilität bei der and seductive. Regal, packt die Bücher in eine Kiste, black box. †e viewer’s experience Videoproduktion. Dies steht im Kontrast A defining factor of Billing’s klebt die Kiste dann zu und so weiter. of the work is underlined as active zu der wertvolleren Materialität und dem films is the transparency of the Diese kleinen Details, dieses langsame and physical. †is accentuates a folglich fetischistischen, traumhaften camerawork and the steady rhythm Ansammeln von Informationen, die visceral relationship with the people Potenzial des 16-mm- oder 35-mm- of the editing. Billing will use Gesten und feinen Unterschiede zwischen and architectural spaces depicted in Films, der von anderen häufig verwendet conventional narrative devices Menschen und Dingen beleben die the films themselves. wird, um einen selbstbewusst hohen and cinematic strategies to set a narrative Handlungsstruktur und †e subsequent temporal künstlerischen Effekt zu erzielen. scene: carefully posed long shots schaffen eine spezielle Atmosphäre. pacing of Billing’s imagery Die Präsentation von Billings Filmen containing sweeping movement Das Warten in Project for a Revolution und asserts an ordering system more auf freistehenden Bildschirmen in signifying arrival, for example. das aktive Arbeiten in Magic & Loss sind in tune with anthropological offenen Galerieräumen hält auch But these will be followed by a gleichermassen monoton und repetitiv, observation, lending these entirely filmischen Untertönen stand. Durch ponderous succession of full- doch ebenso sorgsam organisiert und staged exercises a curious air of diese Ausstellungsmethode entsteht ein frame close-ups of a particular verlockend. authenticity. †e films are often zufälliger Rundgang, der stärker auf die play of light on a surface, a face, Entscheidende und looped, emphasizing circuitous bildhauerischen Konventionen des White or an object. Billing’s meticulously charakteristische Faktoren von Billings duration. No one ever speaks Cube, die im Gegensatz zu denen der composed cinematography Filmen sind die Transparenz der directly to the camera in Billing’s Black Box stehen, abgestimmt ist. Es wird achieves a wonderfully luminous Kameraarbeit und der gleichmässige films and sound is usually either die aktive und sinnliche Werkerfahrung 22 Making †ings Happen 23 real-time noise or the performance des Betrachters unterstrichen. Dies of music itself. Repetition, so betont ein intuitives Verhältnis zu den in important in the production of den Filmen dargestellten Menschen und music, is used to set both rhythm architektonischen Räumen. and tone, as both thematic contents Das nachfolgende zeitliche and formal device across Billing’s Fortschreiten von Billings Bildern entire oeuvre. †e scenario of the dokumentiert ein Ordnungssystem, rehearsal itself and music-making das stärker im Einklang steht mit is used on multiple occasions. anthropologischer Beobachtung, die Billing’s entire You Don’t Love Me diesen zur Aufführung gelangten Yet endeavors for example stems Übungen dann vollends einen seltsamen from the repeat performance Anschein von Authentizität verleiht. Die of one song and evolves into an Filme sind häufig in Loops angelegt und exploration and celebration of betonen eine Kreisbewegung. In Billings invention, self-expression, and Filmen spricht niemals jemand direkt in identity, themes developed in later die Kamera, und der Ton beschränkt sich projects such as Magical World and gewöhnlich auf Geräusche in Echtzeit oder Another Album (2006). auf die Musikaufführung selbst. Das in In all of Billing’s films—bar der Musikproduktion so wichtige Element You Don’t Love Me Yet, Coconut, live at the Lab, San Francisco, 2006 Magical World focusing on a der Wiederholung wird durch Billings children’s choir—the protagonists gesamtes Werk hindurch beim Arrangieren and the apartment depicted in Schauplätzen quer durch Europa gedreht. are largely young people aged von Rhythmus und Ton ebenso wie als Magic & Loss could superficially Die erkennbaren kulturellen Unterschiede in their early twenties to their thematischer Inhalt und formales Muster locate you in a confident, creative dieser neuen Europäer mögen zunächst early thirties. †e films are shot angewandt. Das Szenario von Proben demographic anywhere from vernachlässigbar erscheinen. Sie in locations across Europe. †e und Musikproduktionen findet vielfach Stockholm to Tokyo. Why then do scheinen alle nach dem internationalen visible cultural differences of bei unterschiedlichen Gelegenheiten the protagonists seem to be caught Dresscode »individualistischer« these new Europeans may, at Anwendung. Billings gesamtes Projekt up in a ritual more associated with junger Konsumenten gekleidet zu first, appear negligible. †ey all You Don’t Love Me Yet zum Beispiel basiert the blunt reality of those working sein: unauffällige Markenturnschuhe, appear to wear the international auf der wiederholten Aufführung eines through grief, and that the carefully Baumwolljersey-Sweatshirts, ein skurriles dress code of “individualistic” einzigen Songs und entwickelt sich zur composed domestic lifestyle is Schmuckstück, ein Nasenring und ein young consumers: low key branded Erforschung und zum Zelebrieren von rendered redundant? †ere is asymmetrischer Haarschnitt. Diese trainers, jersey cotton sweatshirts, Erfindung, Selbstausdruck und Identität, a disconcerting charge to this offensichtliche alltägliche Uniformität the odd piece of quirky jewelry, †emen, die in späteren Projekten wie apparently quiet, methodical film, dient jedoch als Deckmantel für komplexe a nose ring, or an asymmetric Magical World (2005) und Another Album provoking, as it does, questions sozioökonomische Beziehungen im Kern haircut. †is apparent everyday (2006) weiterentwickelt werden. about the reality of real estate or von Billings Werk. uniformity, however, operates as In allen Filmen von Billing the commitment of friends. Look Die minimalistische, moderne a smokescreen to complex socio- – ausgenommen der Arbeit Magical World, a little closer. In a similar vein, you Ausstattung der in Magic & Loss economic relationships at the heart die sich auf einen Kinderchor konzentriert notice that the elegant modernist dargestellten Charaktere und Wohnung of Billing’s work. – sind die Protagonisten grösstenteils diving platform in Where She Is at könnte grundsätzlich an jedem For example, the minimal junge Leute zwischen Anfang zwanzig is in a crumbling state of disrepair x-beliebigen vertrauenswürdigen, modern décor of the characters und Anfang dreissig. Die Filme sind an as is the cultural center in which kreativen Ort von Stockholm bis Tokio 24 Making †ings Happen 25

Look out!, video stills, 2003

the children perform in Magical zu finden sein. Warum scheinen die World or that You Don’t Love Me Protagonisten dann in ein Ritual vertieft Yet is a song about unrequited love, zu sein, das man eher mit der rauen Magical World Normalisation endlessly played on repeat. Realität derer in Verbindung bringt, die , installation view, , Rooseum, Malmö, 2006 It often takes reading bis zum Umfallen arbeiten, und das den enables the work to communicate ein Lied über unerwiderte Liebe ist, das Billing’s film notes to clarify the sorgsam geregelten häuslichen Lebensstil so directly to a wide audience. unendlich oft wiederholt wird. very specific cultural resonance überflüssig gemacht hat? Es liegt eine †is is perhaps most obvious Man muss Billings Filmnotizen oft of certain contextual signifiers— beunruhigende Last auf diesem so in Look out! in which the glossy lesen, um die sehr spezifische kulturelle the relevance of that particular scheinbar ruhigen, methodischen Film, new show home contrasts both Resonanz gewisser kontextueller choice of song or location. †is is, der wie hier Fragen über tatsächlichen with the scruffy youths who tour Bedeutungen zu klären – die Relevanz der however, only after you will have Grundbesitz oder über das Engagement it and the views they guide us to of speziellen Wahl eines Liedes oder eines registered a more subliminal, yet von Freunden hervorruft. Wenn man the surrounding run down area of Schauplatzes –, jedoch erst, nachdem very precise effect created through etwas genauer hinschaut, kann man auf East London. †e enduring force of man eine stärker unterbewusste, doch the works themselves. It is those ähnliche Weise bemerken, dass sich der nature versus culture is writ large. sehr präzise, durch die Werke selbst factors which, at first, might elegante modernistische Sprungturm †e social strain of gentrification is erzeugte Wirkung wahrgenommen hat. appear as touches of local color in Where She Is at in einem Zustand des conveyed most acutely by Billing’s Es sind diese Faktoren, die zunächst als or disjointed elements muddying Verfalls befindet. Ebenso baufällig ist auch use of sound. †e hollow, synthetic ein Anflug von Lokalkolorit erscheinen an otherwise clean palette, which das Kulturzentrum, in dem die Kinder acoustics and sealed atmosphere of könnten oder als zusammenhanglose gives the work both its social and in Magical World proben. Oder man kann the interior spaces contrast with the Elemente, die eine sonst reine Palette historical charge, and crucially bemerken, dass You Don’t Love Me Yet more cacophonous external world. beschmutzen, die dem Werk seine soziale 26 Making †ings Happen 27

Transformative tensions are also und historische Bedeutung verleihen und shown to bind this group— vielleicht am aufschlussreichsten. evident in Magical World. Here, the dieses entscheidend in die Lage versetzen, a new generation—together. Es wird geschildert, wie eine Gruppe von nineteen-sixties’ hippie optimism so direkt mit einem breiten Publikum If in Magical World the process kroatischen Freunden im Laufe einer of the title song and the sentimental zu kommunizieren. of learning and becoming is shown Nacht in einem ländlichen Hinterhof charge of the children’s singing are Dies ist vielleicht am augenfälligsten in all its awkwardness, then Another zusammenkommt und eine Reihe von at odds with their stumbling grasp in Look out!, wo die glänzende neue Album is infused with a nostalgia Pop-Folk-Liedern der kroatischen »New of English, the drab surroundings Musterwohnung in starkem Kontrast zu and enduring commitment to, and Wave«-Bewegung singt, die von den of the unfinished cultural center den schmuddeligen Jugendlichen steht, rejuvenation of that which may 1970er Jahren bis in die frühen 1990er contrasting with shots of the die sie besichtigen, und zu dem Ausblick have been lost during a period of Jahre andauerte. Hier ist das Wiederholen splashy advertising billboards in auf die umliegende verwahrloste Gegend transformation. der Lieder ein Mittel, Erinnerungen the streets just outside. †e utopian im Osten Londons. Die andauernde †is theme of transition, und Melodien ins Gedächtnis modernist project is left incomplete Kraft der Natur versus Kultur wird learning, and becoming, central to zurückzurufen, die während der sozialen as Croatia hurtles headlong toward ausgedehnt beschrieben. Die soziale Last Billing’s work, is most specifically und politischen Umwälzungen verloren the more showy attractions of der Gentrifizierung wird ganz genau von expressed in her very recent †is Is gingen. Umwälzungen, die Jugoslawien the European free market. It is Billings Soundverwendung vermittelt. How We Walk on the Moon (2007). veränderten und die weitestgehend certainly not a magical world, but, Die dumpfe, synthetische Akustik und Here we are shown in Billing’s staatlich finanzierten Netzwerke für for a moment, listening to the hermetisch geschlossene Atmosphäre usual methodical, beautifully shot, Tonaufnahmen und Vertrieb auslöschten children you believe it could be. der Innenräume steht in Kontrast detail the process of a group of sowie die Musiker und Produzenten In Another Album (2006), zu der Aussenwelt voller Misstöne. young people learning to sail. selbst ablösten. Diese abwechselnd the tension between intimacy, Transformative Spannungen werden individual experience, history, genauso in Magical World offenbar. Hier production, and real time movie stehen der 60er-Jahre-Hippie-Optimismus is perhaps most telling. A group des Titelsongs und die Sentimentalität of Croatian friends are depicted, im Gesang der Kinder im Widerspruch gathered over the course of one zu deren mangelnder Beherrschung des night in a rural garden singing Englischen. Die triste, graue Umgebung a succession of pop-folk songs des unfertigen Kulturzentrums steht in from the Croatian ‘New Wave’ krassem Gegensatz zu Aufnahmen der movement of the nineteen-seventies protzigen Reklametafeln in den Strassen to the very early nineteen-nineties. draussen. Das utopische modernistische Here, the repeating of the songs Projekt bleibt unvollendet, als Kroatien is shown to be a means to retrieve sich kopfüber auf die glänzenderen memories and melodies lost during Attraktionen des freien Marktes in Europa the social and political upheavals stürzt. Es ist gewiss keine magische Welt, which transformed Yugoslavia doch hört man den Kindern nur einen and wiped out the largely state Moment lang zu, dann glaubt man, funded recording and distribution es könnte eine sein. networks as much as displacing In Another Album (2006) ist the musicians and producers das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen themselves. Alternately melancholic Vertrautheit, individueller Erfahrung, Another Album, production still, 2006 and joyful, this form of recycling is Geschichte, Produktion und Echtzeitfilm (overleaf) †is Is How We Walk on the Moon, production photo, 2007 28 29 30 31 32 Making †ings Happen 33

†ere is a significant melancholische und fröhliche Form operates on an even, horizontal Walk on the Moon. Dieser Lernprozess ‘beginning’ to the piece: der Wiederaufbereitung scheint plane implying continuous – Erfahrung zu sammeln und mit dem †e student, who embarks on diese Gruppe – eine neue Generation movement between the individual Boot sicher zu segeln – wird reflektiert von the sailing lesson, photocopies – zusammenzuhalten. Wenn in Magical and the group. Here, making things unserer dauerhaften Erfahrung mit der instructions and walks to the World der Lern- und Entstehungsprozess happen provides both a dramatic Arbeit selbst. Ausserdem spiegelt Billings sailing school. †e film ends at the in all seiner Schwierigkeit gezeigt wird, tension, and the ethical code Anwendung eines konstanten visuellen point at which the students and the dann ist Another Album erfüllt von dramatized in the production of Wechsels zwischen Vordergrund und boat confidently set out to sea just Nostalgie und anhaltender Hingabe an all her work. Hintergrund, Oberfläche und Tiefe das as a previously bubbling soundtrack das und Verjüngung dessen, was während One of the defining features Verhältnis der Einzelperson zur Gruppe reaches a gentle crescendo and the einer Zeit der Veränderung vielleicht of Billing’s practice is her wider. Die Aktivität des Segelns scheint lyrics “†is is how we walk on the verloren gegangen ist. willingness to encourage and ganz offensichtlich vollständig von ihrem moon…” take flight. How Billing Dieses †ema des Übergangs support others in collaborative gemeinschaftlichen Unternehmungsgeist sets a scene and builds pace can und der Veränderung, das ein zentrales endeavors. Billing alternately abzuhängen. Der Film hat einen ruhigen, easily be taken for granted. †ema in Billings Werk wird, kommt behaves as artist, director, and klaren Auftrag: Übereinstimmung, Here, the editing is so fluid, it am stärksten in einem ihrer jüngsten producer. †is is evidenced in the Zusammenarbeit, »wenn wir alle an einem appears effortless, belying the Werke, †is Is How We Walk on the Moon elucidation of subtle performances Strang ziehen, können wir diese Reise struggles that the group endures. (2007), zum Ausdruck. Hier wird uns of friends and associates who are meistern«. In Billings gesamtem Werk †e exploration of learning mit Billings typischer methodischer, involved in the production of all präsentiert sich der Verwandlungsprozess to work together, collaboratively as wundervoll gefilmter Detailgenauigkeit her films, or the ongoing collective immer transparent, nicht-hierarchisch a group, provides the content and der Lernprozess gezeigt, den eine performance project and previously und unspektakulär. Billings Welt spielt charge to †is Is How We Walk on Gruppe von jungen Menschen beim mentioned, stand-alone film You sich auf einer flachen, horizontalen Ebene the Moon. †is learning—becoming Segeln durchmacht. Signifikant ist der Don’t Love Me Yet (2002–07). †e ab und impliziert ständige Bewegung experienced, getting the boat to Beginn des Stücks: Ein Schüler, der mit former is an ongoing international zwischen dem Individuum und der safely sail—is mirrored by our der Segelschule beginnt, fotokopiert live tour consisting of infinite cover Gruppe. Hier Dinge geschehen zu lassen, durational experience of the work Anweisungen und geht zu der Segelschule. versions of the song “You don’t bewirkt dramatische Spannung und einen itself. Again, Billing’s use of a Der Film endet mit der Szene, als die love me yet” (1984) by American ethischen Kodex, der bei der Produktion constant visual oscillation between Schüler mit dem Boot selbstbewusst in singer-songwriter Roky Erickson, all ihrer Werke anschaulich gezeigt wird. foreground and background, See stechen und gleichzeitig der zuvor and performed by local musicians Ein entscheidendes surface and depth, mirrors the dahinplätschernde Soundtrack zu einem at multiple venues from Helsinki to Charakteristikum von Billings relation of the individuals to the sanften Crescendo ansteigt und der Chicago. †is is also evidenced in Verfahrensweise ist ihre Bereitschaft, group. †e activity of sailing is Liedvers »†is is how we walk on the Billing’s role as a music producer/ andere zu gemeinschaftlichem Bemühen shown to depend entirely on their moon …« verklingt. Wie Billing eine organizer, since 1997, alongside zu ermutigen und darin zu unterstützen. collective enterprise. †e film Szene inszeniert und Tempo aufbaut, kann her brother Anders with their Billing fungiert abwechselnd als presents a calm order: consensus, leicht als selbstverständlich vorausgesetzt record label Make It Happen and Künstlerin, Regisseurin und Produzentin. collaboration, “if we all work werden. Hier sind die Schnitte so comprehensive website for the Davon zeugen Äusserungen über die together we can produce this fliessend, dass es mühelos erscheint, über promotion of bands, production of subtile Darstellungsweise von Freunden journey.” In all of Billing’s work, die Anstrengungen hinwegzutäuschen, die music and tours. und Kollegen, die in die Produktion all the process of transformation die Gruppe auf sich nehmen muss. What this collaborative ihrer Filme involviert sind. Oder auch is continuously shown to be Das Lernen, als Gruppe action means long term—its das laufende und zuvor erwähnte Projekt transparent, non-hierarchical, and gemeinschaftlich zusammenzuarbeiten, Billing’s name featured here in einer Gemeinschaftsaufführung, der non-spectacular. Billing’s world ist Gegenstand von †is Is How We this context remember—is a moot eigenständige Film You Don’t Love Me 34 Making †ings Happen 35

Yet (2002–2007). Dieses Projekt ist eine laufende internationale Livetournee mit unzähligen Cover-Versionen des Liedes »You don’t love me yet« (1984) des amerikanischen Sängers und Songschreibers Roky Erickson, aufgeführt von ortsansässigen Musikern an mehreren Schauplätzen zwischen Helsinki und Chicago. Oder Billings Rolle als Musikproduzentin und -veranstalterin, die sie seit 1997 an der Seite ihres Bruders Anders mit ihrer Plattenfirma und umfassenden Website Make It Happen zur Förderung und Werbung für Bands, Musikproduktionen und Tourneen einnimmt. Was diese gemeinsame Tätigkeit langfristig bedeutet – es muss daran Make It Happen, release event, Stadsteatern, Stockholm, 1998 erinnert werden, dass Billings Name hier in diesem Zusammenhang im Mittelpunkt point. I would argue, however, that steht –, ist ein strittiger Punkt. Billing’s work consistently both Ich würde jedoch behaupten, dass Billings pictures the politics of participation Werk durch die charakteristischen, as content and embodies the entschiedenen Produktionsmethoden contradictions of collaborative, konsequent zweierlei in sich vereint: entrepreneurial enterprise through die Politik der Teilnahme als Inhalt her distinct methods of production. darzustellen und die Widersprüche von It is precisely the arising political Gemeinschaftsunternehmungen zu and symbolic tensions of both verkörpern. Es sind gerade die politischen content and process which point und symbolischen Spannungsverhältnisse to a wider, complex social and von Inhalt und Prozess, die auf eine economic dynamic currently being breitere, komplexere soziale und played out between the individual wirtschaftliche Dynamik hinweisen, die and the collective, market and state, sich gegenwärtig zwischen Individuum freedom of choice and control, und Kollektiv, Markt und Staat, competition and collaboration— Wahlfreiheit und Kontrolle, Konkurrenz all the buzzwords of Western und Zusammenarbeit abspielen. democratic politics can be conjured Alle Schlagwörter der westlichen Make It Happen on Tour 2, “All Songs Are Sad Songs,” here—and it is what gives Billing’s demokratischen Politik können hier zitiert light box and poster by Karl Holmqvist work its contemporary significance. werden – und das ist es, was Billings Werk (overleaf) Make It Happen on Tour 1, Park; Park the bus, für unsere Zeit so bedeutsam macht. live program, Momentum, Moss, 2000 36 «Title» 37 38 39 40 41 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles

A Conversation between Johanna Billing & Helena Selder Helena Selder: Why did you Helena Selder: Warum bist du become an artist? Künstlerin geworden?

Johanna Billing: Drawing was Johanna Billing: In der Schule war my favorite subject in school. Zeichnen mein Lieblingsfach, doch es But becoming an artist wasn’t an war für mich nicht von Anfang an das obvious choice for me from the Nächstliegende, Künstlerin zu werden. beginning. I didn’t know what it Ich wusste nicht, was das genau bedeutete. was. I grew up in Jönköping where Ich wuchs in Jönköping auf, da gab es there wasn’t anywhere you could nirgends die Möglichkeit, nach einem go to do life drawing. It’s funny Modell zeichnen zu lernen. Das ist lustig, because that’s really where the “do- weil gerade dort die Mentalität des »Do it it-yourself” mentality started that, I yourself« ihren Anfang nahm, die, wie ich guess, has been a part of everything glaube, einen Teil von allem bildet, was ich I’ve done since. In school, I stole seitdem gemacht habe. In der Schule stahl clay and modeling stands and sat ich Ton und Modelliergestelle; ich sass home doing model studies without dann zu Hause und betrieb Modellstudien a model. †en I applied to art ohne Modell. Dann bewarb ich mich schools with my sculptures and was mit meinen Plastiken bei Kunstschulen admitted to one in Stockholm. One und wurde an einer Schule in Stockholm of the reasons why I started making angenommen. Einer der Gründe, weshalb art was that I was interested in so ich begann, künstlerisch tätig zu werden, many different things. I wrote, I bestand darin, dass ich mich mit so was interested in music, history, vielen unterschiedlichen Dingen befasste: social science, philosophy and Ich schrieb, ich beschäftigte mich mit all of those things more or less to Musik, Geschichte, Sozialwissenschaft, the same extent. When I had to Philosophie – und mit all diesen †emen Look out!, production still, Gainsborough Studios, London, 2003 choose an education for a career, I mehr oder weniger in gleichem Masse. suddenly panicked and art became Als ich eine Ausbildung für eine berufliche (previous spread) Make It Happen on Tour 1, Park; Park the Bus, production still, Momentum, Moss, 2000 a way of taking in all of it. It was Laufbahn auswählen musste, bekam simply about choosing a way that ich plötzlich Panik; doch die Kunst gab left what I was to be more open. mir dann die Möglichkeit, alles mit einzubeziehen. Es ging einfach darum, HS: You later applied to the einen Weg zu wählen, der grössere University College of Arts, Crafts Freiheiten für das bot, was ich sein wollte. 42 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 43

Kvartssamtal, detail of series of photos, 1994

(right) Kvartssamtal, contact sheet, from series of photos, 1994 and Design in Stockholm as a HS: Später hast du dich in Stockholm sculptor, but ended up working an der Kunstakademie als Bildhauerin with photography and film. How beworben, aber letzten Endes hast du did that come about? dann in den Bereichen Fotografie und Film gearbeitet. Wie kam es dazu? JB: When I started at the University College in 1994, we had JB: Als ich im Jahre 1994 an der no teachers, and the professor was Kunstakademie begann, hatten wir never there. We had nobody we keine Lehrer, und der Professor war could talk to, and a lot of our time nie anwesend. Wir hatten niemanden, was spent getting the situation to mit dem wir sprechen konnten, und wir work as best we could. But there verbrachten einen grossen Teil unserer were some good projects at the Zeit damit, die Arbeitssituation so gut school at that time. Among other wie möglich zu organisieren. Aber es things, Swedish artists Ebba Matz gab zu jener Zeit einige gute Projekte an and Carin Ellberg had a project der Schule. So hatten zum Beispiel die called “What I really want to do.” schwedischen Künstler Ebba Matz und I tried to ask myself that question Carin Ellberg ein Projekt mit dem and answer it as honestly as I could. Titel »Was ich wirklich tun will«. What I really wanted to do was to Ich versuchte, diese Frage mir selbst zu have a discussion about what I was stellen und sie so ehrlich zu beantworten, doing—but there were no teachers. wie ich konnte. Was ich wirklich wollte,

I decided to set up a situation— das war, eine Diskussion über das zu 44 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 45

I called it Kvartssamtal (15 minute führen, woran ich arbeitete – aber es lessons during their last semester. an der Kunstakademie während ihres conversations about artistic gab ja keine Lehrer. Ich beschloss, eine †e students practiced together letzten Semesters Tanzstunden angeboten practice and development, Situation zu arrangieren – ich nannte sie and then you made a film with a wurden. Die Studenten übten gemeinsam; reenacting 15 minute meetings Kvartssamtal [15-minütige Gespräche über dance that you had rehearsed. danach drehtest du einen Film mit einem held between students, teachers, künstlerische Praxis und Entwicklung On one level, the film is about Tanz, den du einstudiert hattest. Auf einer and parents in Swedish primary dokumentieren, indem sie 15-minütige how important it is for the students Ebene handelt der Film davon, wie wichtig schools). I set up my sculptures, Zusammenkünfte von Schülern, Lehrern to perform and succeed when es für die Studenten ist, gute Leistungen models, paintings, contact sheets, und Eltern in schwedischen Grundschulen they graduate. zu zeigen und erfolgreich zu sein, wenn sie and ideas for installations on a rekonstruieren]. Ich baute meine Plastiken, ihren Abschluss machen. table and invited the other six in Modelle, Gemälde, Kontaktbögen und my class to come in one by one. I Ideen für Installationen auf einem Tisch wanted a situation where things auf und bat die anderen sechs aus meiner would be connected. “Where do Klasse, nacheinander hereinzukommen. you come from?” “What do you Ich wollte eine Situation, in der die do?” †ey were invited to sit there Dinge in einer Beziehung zueinander and question things. I showed the stehen sollten: »Wo kommst du her?«, documentation from Kvartssamtal, »Was machst du?«. Die Besucher wurden which looked like quite dry gebeten, sich hinzusetzen und Fragen photographs of interrogations. zu stellen. Ich zeigte die Dokumentation In spite of there being almost no von Kvartssamtal, die wie ganz trockene information, I noticed that people Fotografien von Verhören wirkte. Obwohl Graduate Show, rehearsal photo, 1999 at the school understood what the es dort fast keinerlei Information gab, work was about just from the title, bemerkte ich, dass die Leute an der JB: Yes, that film is informed by JB: Ja. Dieser Film basiert auf einer the photographs, and who was in Schule verstanden, worum es in dieser some idea of achieving. I always Vorstellung von Leistung. Ich beziehe them. For the first time, I had Arbeit ging – einfach vom Titel her, von come back to that. It has to do with mich immer wieder darauf. Das hängt done something that meant den Fotografien und den Leuten, die auf a “do-it-yourself” way of thinking mit der Denkweise des »Do it yourself« something, both to me and for ihnen zu sehen waren. Zum ersten Mal where you don’t go to what is being zusammen – dass man also nicht dorthin others. Something that was real, hatte ich etwas hervorgebracht, das etwas served. Instead, you try to find geht, wo einem etwas bereits Fertiges that had to do with reality. bedeutete, und zwar sowohl für mich als your own way of doing things. vorgesetzt wird, sondern stattdessen Trusting what was around me auch für andere. Etwas Reales, etwas, But it also has to do with a feeling einen eigenen Weg findet, die Dinge was interesting enough. das mit der Realität zu tun hatte. Ich of guilt that I had when I started zu tun. Aber das hat auch mit einem hatte darauf vertraut, dass das, was out in art. I thought it was the Schuldgefühl zu tun, das ich hatte, als ich HS: You came from Jönköping sich um mich herum befand, interessant ultimate self-fulfillment, the most in der Kunst begann. Ich dachte, Kunst to the University College, and genug war. “egoistic” thing imaginable, and wäre die ultimative Selbstverwirklichung, you seem to have felt a pressure for that reason, so embarrassing das am stärksten egobezogene Ding, to do well. For your graduate HS: Du kamst von Jönköping an die and futile. †at changed with das man sich vorstellen kann – und aus exhibition in 1999 you made Kunstakademie, und scheinst einen Druck Kvartssamtal, where I invited others diesem Grund so peinlich und nutzlos. the film Graduate Show—a gespürt zu haben, erfolgreich zu sein. Für so I could go outside of myself and Das änderte sich mit Kvartssamtal, wo project where the graduating deine Abschluss-Ausstellung im Jahre 1999 create a dialogue. But this thing ich andere einlud; auf diese Weise konnte students at the University hast du den Film Graduate Show erstellt, about achieving started out being ich aus mir selbst herausgehen und in College were offered dance ein Projekt, bei dem den Absolventen about us at the Art College and einen Dialog treten. Aber die Vorstellung 46 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 47 my own problem with my role as von Leistung und auch mein eigenes an artist. When we left school, I Problem mit meiner Rolle als Künstlerin suddenly saw how much society begann uns an der Kunstakademie zu had changed, and that it wasn’t beeinflussen. Nachdem wir die Schule only artists who were involved verlassen hatten, nahm ich plötzlich wahr, with self-fulfillment. Suddenly, wie sehr sich die Gesellschaft verändert everybody is doing the same thing. hatte, und dass sich nicht nur die Künstler Not only do so many people want mit Selbstverwirklichung befassten. to become artists—whatever you Plötzlich macht jeder dasselbe. Nicht nur do, self-fulfillment is somehow diejenigen, die Künstler werden wollen, included, and everybody has the machen es – was immer man auch tut, What Else Do You Do?, video stills, 2001 same amount of anxiety about Selbstverwirklichung gehört irgendwie performing: being happy, having dazu, und jeder hat das gleiche Verlangen midst of? When I show my Swedish Bemerken sie die Veränderungen, die the right relationship, the right danach, gute Leistung zu zeigen, glücklich films abroad, they are about just sich im Laufe der Zeit vollziehen? Sind home, the right career. Compared zu sein, die richtige Beziehung, das that. But, if I try to do something sie sich dessen bewusst, inmitten welcher to the rest of society, the artist’s richtige Zuhause, die richtige Karriere that is about Sweden or Stockholm Situation sie sich befinden? Wenn ich role isn’t as egocentric as it used zu haben. Im Vergleich mit dem Rest der and show it here in Stockholm, it meine schwedischen Filme im Ausland to be. On the other hand, that’s Gesellschaft ist die Rolle des Künstlers becomes sometimes too close. zeige, geht es gerade darum. Wenn ich not such a funny thing to discover. nicht mehr so egozentrisch, wie sie es jedoch versuche, etwas zu machen, das Maybe my work is a kind of—“Hey! früher einmal war. Andererseits ist es HS: In the filmWhere She Is at, that von Schweden oder Stockholm handelt, What’s happened?” aber gar nicht so lustig, wenn man das you shot in Oslo (Moderna Museet und es hier in Stockholm zeige, dann fehlt entdeckt. Vielleicht ist meine Arbeit eine project in collaboration with Oslo manchmal die Distanz. HS: †e films you made when Art von »He, was ist denn passiert?!«. Konsthall, 2001), these slippery, you had graduated (Project for a difficult things crystallize and HS: In dem Film Where She Is at, den du Revolution, 2000, Missing out, 2001, HS: Die Filme, die du nach deinem become very clear. †e film shows in Oslo gedreht hast [Projekt des Moderna What Else Do You Do? 2001) were Abschluss gedreht hast – Project for a a woman hesitating at the top of a Museet in Zusammenarbeit mit der Oslo strongly based around people and Revolution (2000), Missing out (2001), diving tower and both the title and Konsthall, 2001], konkretisieren sich diese environments here in Stockholm. What Else Do You Do? (2001) –, basieren the film itself are about how one ungreifbaren und schwierigen Dinge und Has there been a big difference in hohem Masse auf Menschen und feels, where one is in life. kommen sehr klar zum Ausdruck. Der these last few years when you’ve Schauplätzen hier in Stockholm. Gab Film zeigt eine Frau, die in einem Freibad been working almost exclusively es in den letzten paar Jahren, als du fast JB: I happened to be in this place zögernd oben auf einem Sprungturm abroad? ausschliesslich im Ausland ausgestellt hast, “Ingierstrandsbadet” that is an old steht, und sowohl der Titel als auch der eine grosse Veränderung? bath and recreational facility Film selbst handeln davon, wie man sich JB: †e difference is not that big. with a restaurant and diving tower fühlt, wo man im Leben steht. If you compare the films you named JB: Der Unterschied ist nicht allzu gross. outside Oslo. Everybody was to the films I’ve made abroad, they Vergleicht man die Filme, die du eben telling us we had to go there JB: Ich war zufällig an diesem Ort. are basically about the same things. genannt hast, mit den Filmen, die ich because it was so fantastic and »Ingierstrands Bad« ist eine alte Everything is about a society that is im Ausland gedreht habe, so geht es in was probably going to be torn Schwimmbad- und Freizeitanlage mit changing and people in it. Do you ihnen im Grunde um dieselben Dinge. down. I became interested since einem Restaurant und einem Sprungturm notice the changes over time? Are Alles handelt von einer sich verändernden everything in Sweden that was in der Nähe von Oslo. Jeder sagte uns, you aware of what you are in the Gesellschaft und den Menschen in ihr. built in the nineteen-thirties and wir müssten dorthin gehen, weil es 48 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 49

(clockwise from top left) Where She Is at, photo, 2001 Where She Is at, production still, Ingierstrand, 2001

Ingierstrand Bad, designed by Ole Lind I was watching this quiet drama ansehen und schätzen, und wir würden es Schistad and Eyvind Mostue in 1933 unfold with the girl alone at the niemals einfach so abreissen. Ich machte

Loreley, Jan Billing might be preparing to top of the diving tower. Standing mir Gedanken darüber, wie wichtig es nineteen-forties in a modernist vein jump from a cliff at the Swedish West Coast there alone with this decision damals war, als Ingierstrand erbaut wurde, has a high priority for us. It is really sometime in the nineteen-fifties. whether to jump or not. It’s really dass jeder Zugang zu Erholung und what we perceive and appreciate Where She Is at, video still, 2001 an individual “performance,” a Natur haben sollte, sogar die Menschen, as our heritage and we would decision, an achievement. She die in der Innenstadt wohnen. Aber I sol og vann på Ingierstrand. Print, 1934 never tear it down just like that. stands on a tower in the shape of anscheinend ist das nicht mehr wichtig. I thought about how important it an “F” that becomes a symbol for Als ich dort draussen war, dachte ich über was, when Ingierstrand was built, so fantastisch sei und wahrscheinlich all old functionalist, modernist all das nach, während ich beobachtete, that everyone should have access abgerissen werden sollte. Ich wurde ideas. What the political parties wie sich dieses stille Drama abspielte: to recreation and nature, even neugierig, weil in Schweden alles, was agree about; the great ideas, the das Mädchen, das sich allein dort oben the people living in the inner city. in den 1930er und 1940er Jahren in direction a country takes—do they auf dem Sprungturm befand. Sie stand But apparently it’s not important modernistischer Richtung gebaut worden have any relation to the individual? dort, allein mit ihrer Entscheidung, anymore. When I was out there, I war, für uns eine hohe Priorität hat. Es I think these things are difficult to ob sie springen solle oder nicht. Es ist was thinking about all this while ist gerade das, was wir als unser Erbe get a grip on and talk about. But in wirklich ein individueller »Auftritt« 50 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 51 a film you can connect things and – eine Entscheidung und eine Leistung. look at them. Maybe it engages a Sie steht auf einem Turm, der die Form physical understanding that gives eines »F« hat; er wird zu einem Symbol you a feeling you can take with you für all die alten funktionalistischen, and think about for a longer period. modernistischen Ideen. Das, worauf sich die politischen Parteien einigen, HS: You were invited in a similar die grossen Ideen, die Richtung, die ein way by Milch (an independent Land einschlägt – hat das irgendeine art platform based in London) Beziehung zum Individuum? Ich denke, to make a film in London. Can es ist schwierig, diese Dinge zu begreifen Look out!, production stills, Gainsborough Studios, London, 2003 you tell me a little about Look out! und darüber zu sprechen. Aber in einem (Gainsborough Studios, London, Film kann man die Dinge miteinander do something where everything wählt sie weiterhin und denkt, sie seien 2003) where we follow a group of in Zusammenhang bringen und ansehen. changes so fast that it would dieselbe Partei, die sie schon immer youths who visit one of the new flats Vielleicht gewährleistet er ein konkretes already be old the first time it was waren. In London und besonders in East in a luxury development in their Verständnis, das einem ein Gefühl gibt, shown. I was invited to exhibit London, das in den letzten paar Jahren neighborhood? das man mitnehmen und über das man at Gainsborough Studios, an die extremste Entwicklung durchgemacht eine längere Zeit nachdenken kann. old film studio from the thirties, hat, besteht das Besondere darin, dass JB: What was interesting was the where Hitchcock made his films. die Veränderungen so ungeheuer sind. difference compared to my earlier HS: Auf ähnliche Weise wurdest du von Gainsborough Studios is as big as Das kommt wahrscheinlich daher, weil es films. I had worked in places where »Milch« [einer unabhängigen Londoner a whole block and was just being im Vereinigten Königreich so viel Geld development has a slower pace. Kunstplattform] eingeladen, einen Film developed into luxury flats. †e und grössere soziale und ökonomische I thought that was interesting in London zu drehen. Könntest du mir housing company also financed Unterschiede gibt. Es reizte mich, etwas because it can be difficult to feel it. etwas über Look out! [Gainsborough an exhibition space in order to zu realisieren, das dies widerspiegeln You notice it after a few years and Studios, London, 2003] erzählen, wo wir be allowed to keep the name würde. Aber ich fragte mich, wie ich then you think—How drastic! It’s a einer Gruppe von Jugendlichen folgen, “Gainsborough Studios.” One way etwas erschaffen könnte, wenn sich doch small, small change every day. †e die eine der neuen Wohnungen einer for me to comment on the situation alles so schnell verändert, dass es bereits Social Democrats in Sweden, for Luxuswohnanlage in ihrer Nachbarschaft was to go in and use the building alt wäre, wenn man es das erste Mal example, aren’t what they were, but besichtigt? as the film studio it was originally, zeigen würde. Ich wurde eingeladen, in still you vote for them and think but also to try to show what was den Gainsborough Studios auszustellen, that they’re the same party that JB: Das Reizvolle war der Unterschied im happening in the building. At einem alten Filmstudio aus den 1950er they’ve always been. †e difference Vergleich zu meinen früheren Filmen. Ich the time, it was open house for Jahren, in dem Hitchcock seine Filme in London, and especially East hatte an Orten gearbeitet, an denen sich prospective buyers. What I also gedreht hatte. Die Gainsborough London, which has had the most die Entwicklung nicht so schnell vollzieht. wanted to connect to this were my Studios sind so gross wie ein ganzer extreme development in the last Ich dachte, das wäre von Interesse, weil es first feelings when I walked around Block, und man war gerade dabei, sie in few years, is that the changes are schwierig sein kann, es wahrzunehmen. in the area. †ere were lots of Luxuswohnungen umzuwandeln. Die so tremendous, probably because Man bemerkt es erst nach ein paar Jahren, signs on the walls of the buildings Wohnungsbaugesellschaft finanzierte there’s so much money and greater und dann denkt man »Wie drastisch!«. about the developments in the area, auch einen Ausstellungsraum, damit sie social and economic differences in Es ist jeden Tag eine ganz winzige along the lines of “New luxury flats den Namen »Gainsborough Studios« the UK. I was attracted to doing Veränderung. Die Sozialdemokraten in planned here,” and next to them, beibehalten durfte. Für mich bestand eine something that would reflect Schweden sind zum Beispiel nicht mehr signs asking people to come and Art, diese Situation zu kommentieren, this, but wondered how I could das, was sie einmal waren; aber man help at local youth centers. Before darin, das Gebäude als das Filmstudio zu 52 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 53 the refurbishment, Gainsborough benützen, das es ursprünglich war. Aber with, to help local youths—a kind Jugendlichen in der Nachbarschaft helfen. Studios had housed a non-profit ich wollte auch versuchen zu zeigen, was of misguided and totally illogical Wie? Indem sie den Park »säuberten«? music school named “Young, in diesem Gebäude vorging. Zu dieser youth activity. You won’t see it in Das würde das Problem nur an einen Gifted, and Broke” after Nina Zeit gab es dort für potenzielle Käufer the film, except that they look a anderen Ort verlagern. Als Kommentar Simone’s classic [song] “Young, Besichtigungen von Musterwohnungen. little too young to be in the position dazu arrangierte ich inszenierte Gifted, and Black”. †ere were Zudem wollte ich eine Verbindung zu den to actually purchase a flat. But just Wohnungsbesichtigungen. In erster clearly some very guilty feelings ersten Gefühlen herstellen, die ich hatte, by attending a viewing they have, at Linie wollte ich junge Leute aus der around. †e building lies next to als ich auf diesem Gelände umherging. least formally, a chance. Gegend einladen, herzukommen und die Shoreditch Park, which in 2003, Da gab es viele Schilder auf den Wohnungen zu besichtigen; sie sollten was very run-down. At the other Mauern der Gebäude, die sich auf die HS: You boil down a tendency, sehen, wie diese innen aussahen und ihre end of the park, there was a little Baumassnahmen auf dem Gelände something in the air, into a Nachbarschaft aus dieser Perspektive canal that was in the prospectus for bezogen, etwa im Stile von »Hier situation and then you channel that wahrnehmen. Dieser Besuch wurde the flats, which advertised views entstehen neue Luxuswohnungen«, through people who often have nahezu zu einer Art Lehrveranstaltung. of the park and the canal. †e flats und daneben gab es Schilder, die die a connection to that situation. It Ich glaube, ich spielte mit der Idee, dass es themselves were luxurious glass Leute aufforderten, in den örtlichen becomes a way of concretizing this fast etwas sein könnte, was sich die Planer cubes, but the views showed all Jugendzentren mitzuhelfen. Vor der Zeitgeist and making it manifest. der Sanierung einfallen lassen könnten, the problems in the surrounding Luxussanierung war in den Gainsborough neighborhood. Studios eine gemeinnützige Musikschule untergebracht; sie trug den Namen HS: The park is full of problems, »Young, Gifted and Broke« nach drugs, drink you name it. Nina Simones klassischem »Young, Gifted and Black«. Dabei gab es ganz klar JB: Yes, and during the time I einige starke Schuldgefühle. Das Gebäude was there were several incidents. liegt gleich neben dem Shoreditch Park, †e developers at Gainsborough der im Jahre 2003 sehr heruntergekommen Studios kept saying they would war. Am anderen Ende des Parks gab help youths in the neighborhood. es einen kleinen Kanal; er war in den Look out!, video stills, 2003 How? By cleaning up the park? Prospekten für die Wohnungen zu sehen, †at would only move the problem die mit dem Ausblick auf den Park und JB: I would never want it to become um den Jugendlichen dort zu helfen somewhere else. To comment on den Kanal warben. Die Wohnungen selbst a generalization. I prefer to invite – eine Art törichte und völlig unlogische this, I arranged staged flat shows. waren luxuriöse Glaswürfel, der Ausblick people and explain to them what Jugendaktivität. Man wird es in diesem Above all, I wanted to invite young zeigte jedoch all die Probleme in der I am interested in. After that, it Film nicht sehen – nur dass sie ein wenig people from the area to come up näheren Nachbarschaft. becomes their improvisation that zu jung aussehen, um in der Lage zu sein, and look at the flats to see what we follow. Something that happens sich wirklich eine Wohnung kaufen zu they were like inside and to see HS: Der Park steckt voller Probleme. and not something that I direct. I können. Aber gerade dadurch, dass sie bei their neighborhood from that Drogen, Alkohol, was auch immer. think a lot of things come out even einer Wohnungsbesichtigung dabei sind, perspective. It became almost if the people don’t talk. It’s hard to haben sie zumindest formell eine Chance. like an educational visit. I think I JB: Ja, und während der Zeit, als ich da believe [that] one doesn’t usually was playing with the idea that it war, gab es dort auch einige Vorfälle. Die give people the freedom just to “be” HS: Du resümierst eine Tendenz, etwas, could almost be something that Planer der Sanierung der Gainsborough in a film, but I really feel I get a lot das in der Luft liegt, zu einer Situation, the developers could come up Studios sagten immer, sie wollten den out of it, especially when trying to und dann kanalisierst du es durch 54 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 55 work with things that are hard to Menschen, die oft in einer Verbindung you frustrate the audience by not grossformatig in einem Raum projiziert, pinpoint or verbalize. mit dieser Situation stehen. Dies wird zu serving them anything “finished.” wird eine physische Kommunikation einer Art und Weise diesen Zeitgeist zu On the other hand, maybe they are geschaffen. Die Filme wechseln ständig HS: It’s very telling how one konkretisieren und ihn greifbar zu machen. films about frustration. zwischen unterschiedlichen Positionen. of these youngsters in the film Zuerst könnte der Film vielleicht einem impatiently walks up to the sink JB: Ich möchte niemals, dass es eine HS: You made Magic & Loss Spielfilm ähneln, weil er die Qualitäten and turns on one of the elegantly Verallgemeinerung wird. Ich ziehe es (2005) on invitation from Dutch eines Kinofilms hat. Dann verwandelt designed taps. vor, die Leute einzuladen und ihnen zu “Smart Project Space” and shot er sich in einen Dokumentarfilm – aber erklären, worum es mir geht. Danach it on location in Amsterdam. plötzlich wird er theatralisch, und dann JB: Yes, they’re a little bit wird es zu ihrer eigenen Improvisation, It’s, if possible, even more open- wieder verwandelt er sich in etwas, das die uncomfortable. I want to make der wir dann folgen. Etwas, das geschieht ended and abstract than Look out! Dokumentation einer Performance films where there is constant – jedoch nicht etwas, das von mir gelenkt In the film we follow a group of zu sein scheint. Man kann sich nicht activity, with people who are wird. Ich glaube, dass viele Dinge auch people as they pack up somebody’s wirklich entspannen und denken »Gut, occupied with something, maybe dann deutlich werden, wenn die Leute apartment. ich schaue mir einen Film an und not what they usually do, but nicht sprechen. Es ist kaum zu glauben, konzentriere mich auf die Handlung«. something that they’ve been made aber man gibt den Leuten normalerweise JB: Well, it’s a sort of choreography Ich will, dass all diese Schichten während to do. †at makes them think nicht die Freiheit, in einem Film einfach and it’s very formal in a way. At the der ganzen Zeit aktiv sind. Es ist wie bei about why and how they’re doing nur zu »sein«; ich glaube aber wirklich, same time, it’s a documentation einer Kamera, die ständig hin und her it and in what situation. †en dass ich damit viel herausholen kann. of something that is actually zoomt, ohne dabei die richtige Einstellung we watch it, and maybe we think Besonders wenn ich versuche, mit Dingen happening. From the beginning, zu finden. Manchmal ist es schwierig, about the same things. †en when zu arbeiten, die schwer auf den Punkt zu I had the title of the Lou Reed Filme wie diese zu machen, weil man das the film is projected large in a bringen oder zu verbalisieren sind. album, “Magic and Loss”, as a Publikum dadurch frustriert, dass man room, a physical communication working title. He released the ihm nichts »Abgeschlossenes« vorsetzt. is created. †e films are constantly HS: Es ist sehr aufschlussreich, wie record after a period when several Andererseits sind es vielleicht aber auch sliding between different positions. einer dieser jungen Menschen im Film of his friends had passed away. I Filme über Frustration. At first, the film might resemble ungeduldig zum Spülbecken geht had it in mind in the beginning of fiction film because it has a und einen dieser elegant designten the process of the film because I HS: Du hast Magic & Loss [2005] cinematic quality. †en it turns Wasserhähne aufdreht. first started to think about it when auf Einladung des niederländischen into a documentary, but suddenly, I was invited to create a work for »Smart Project Space« gemacht und it gets theatrical and then, once JB: Ja, sie fühlen sich ein klein wenig an exhibition about the sinking diesen Film in Amsterdam gedreht. again, it changes into something unbehaglich. Ich möchte Filme drehen, of the Estonia‡, that focused on Magic & Loss hat – sofern dies überhaupt that seems to be a documentation in denen es eine konstante Aktivität disappearance. möglich ist – ein sogar noch offeneres of a performance. You can’t gibt. Mit Menschen, die sich mit etwas Ende und ist noch abstrakter really relax and think, “Okay, beschäftigen – vielleicht nicht mit dem, ‡ †e Estonia was a big passenger als Look out!. Wir folgen in diesem I’m watching a film and now I’m was sie normalerweise tun, sondern mit ship that travelled between Sweden Film einer Gruppe von Menschen, going to focus on the plot.” I want etwas, das man ihnen vorgegeben hat. Das and Estonia. It sank at sea taking die eine Wohnung für den Umzug all these layers to be active all the bringt sie dazu, darüber nachzudenken, nearly 900 passengers with it in 1994. leer räumen. time. It’s like a camera that keeps warum und wie sie es tun und in welcher zooming back and forth, failing to Situation. Dann schauen wir es an, und I started to think about, quite JB: Ja, das ist eine Art Choreografie, find its focus. It’s sometimes hard vielleicht denken wir über dieselben practically, what happens when und es ist in gewisser Hinsicht sehr to make films like that because Sachen nach. Wenn man dann den Film there are large-scale catastrophes formalistisch. Zugleich ist es aber auch 56 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 57 like the Estonia. It’s not only one eine Dokumentation von etwas, das or two people missing; it’s entire tatsächlich geschieht. Am Anfang hatte families, circles of friends and—in ich den Titel des Lou-Reed-Albums the case of the Estonia—whole »Magic and Loss« als Arbeitstitel. villages. Strangers without that Er veröffentlichte die Aufnahme nach nostalgic relationship arrive to pack einem Zeitraum, in welchem mehrere up the deceased persons’ homes. seiner Freunde gestorben waren. Das ging I got obsessed with the idea and I mir am Anfang des Filmprozesses durch was curious to see what it would den Kopf – ich begann zuerst, daran zu Magic & Loss, video stills, 2005 look like. While I was thinking denken, als ich eingeladen wurde, für about it, the Estonia exhibition was eine Ausstellung über den Untergang cancelled. †at only made it easier der Estonia* ein Werk zu schaffen, das Als die Ausstellung abgesagt for me to really go on and explore sich auf das †ema des Verschwindens wurde, war ich gerade in Amsterdam, this isolated event of the ongoing konzentrieren sollte. und da ich mich eben dort befand, packing and the relationship begann ich, darüber nachzudenken, wie between the people and the objects * Die Estonia war ein grosses Passagierschiff, es an diesem Ort relevant sein könnte. being packed. das zwischen Schweden und Estland fuhr. Es Alle Niederländer in meiner Umgebung When the exhibition was versank im Jahre 1994 im Meer und nahm fast sprachen ständig von Wohnungen, cancelled I was in Amsterdam 900 Passagiere mit sich in die Tiefe. furniture became a performative Wohnungswechsel, Umzügen und von der and, as I was there, I started ingredient in the film once it had Verbesserung der Lebenssituation. Ich to think about how it could be Ich begann, ganz praktisch darüber been moved and took place in habe gelesen, dass Schweden an der Spitze relevant there. All the Dutch nachzudenken, was geschieht, wenn Amsterdam. der Liste von Ländern mit der prozentual people around me kept talking sich eine grosse Katastrophe wie die der höchsten Anzahl von Single-Haushalten about flats, changing, moving, and Estonia ereignet. Da verschwinden nicht HS: You once said that your films steht, und ich wäre nicht überrascht, wenn improving the situation of living. nur ein oder zwei Personen, sondern start as images, dreams, or songs die Niederlande an zweiter Stelle kämen. I’ve read that Sweden tops the ganze Familien, Freundeskreise und that you’ve thought about for some Es ist ökonomisch möglich, und es wird list of countries with the highest – im Falle der Estonia – ganze Dörfer. time before you start to construct von den Leuten in unserem Teil der Welt amount of single households per Fremde Menschen ohne diese nostalgische a work around them. Magical als positiv angesehen. Wenn man durch capita, but I wouldn’t be surprised Beziehung kommen und räumen die World was shot in a cultural center Amsterdam geht, sieht man eine Menge if the Netherlands came in second. Häuser der verstorbenen Personen leer. Ich outside Zagreb and is connected dieser grossen Hebevorrichtungen, wie It’s possible economically and war wie besessen von dieser Idee, und ich to the song “Magical World.” †e sie für Umzüge verwendet werden. it’s something that people view war neugierig zu erfahren, wie es aussehen film depicts a group of children as Man wird ständig auf all die Leute positively in our part of the world. würde. Während ich darüber nachdachte, they’re about to rehearse that song. aufmerksam gemacht, die umziehen While walking around Amsterdam wurde diese Estonia-Ausstellung jedoch – durch diese Art von öffentlichem you see a lot of these big hooks that abgesagt. Das machte es mir noch leichter, JB: Yes, “Magical World” was †eaterstück, das mit den are used when people move houses. weiter voranzukommen und dieses a song which had been with me Hebevorrichtungen, den Leitern und You are constantly made aware isolierte Ereignis des fortwährenden for many years that suddenly den Maschinen aufgeführt wird. Das of all the people moving because Ausräumens und Wegschaffens sowie die popped up in my head when I was Herablassen des Mobiliars wurde in of the sort of public play that is Beziehung zwischen den Menschen und on a residency in Croatia during diesem Film zu einer performativen enacted with the hook, the ladders, den Objekten, die weggeschafft werden, zu autumn 2004. When I was there, Bestandteil nachdem diese bewegt and the machines. †e lowering of untersuchen. I was invited by the group WHW wurden und fand in Amsterdam statt. 58 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 59

understand it. I heard, instead JB: Ja, »Magical World« war ein Lied, of the singer Minnie Riperton’s das mich über viele Jahre hinweg begleitet original version, a young boy hat; ganz plötzlich kam es mir wieder in singing the solo chorus. den Sinn, als ich mich im Herbst 2004 “Magical World” was zu einem Arbeitsaufenthalt in Kroatien recorded by a group called Rotary befand. Als ich dort war, wurde ich Connection and written by Sidney von der Gruppe whm (what, how & for Barnes in 1968. It’s interesting whom) eingeladen, an der Ausstellung because it seems very personal, Normalisation teilzunehmen, die den but I also think it’s a song about übereilten Prozess der Angleichung an transformation. Minnie Riperton die Europäische Union, den Kroatien sings, “Why do you want to wake durchläuft, zum †ema hatte. Ich hatte me from this dream, I’m not vorher Reisen durch Albanien, Serbien interested.” †ere’s a very sad und Rumänien unternommen, nicht aber feeling in the song and, at the same durch Kroatien. Es war gewiss kein Zufall, time, it’s got a very proud and dass dieses Lied auftauchte, aber ich war cocky “Don’t come here trying to mir nicht sicher, ob es an jenem Ort und change me, I am who I am” kind of zu jenem Zeitpunkt relevant sein könnte. attitude. What is also interesting is Ich hatte ein Bild in meinem Kopf, und that when [the song] was released, ich fühlte, dass ich es nach aussen bringen Rotary Connection was one of the musste, um es zu verstehen. Ich hörte, first racially mixed bands. †eir wie statt der Sängerin Minnie Riperton music wasn’t explicitly political der Originalversion ein kleiner Junge den but, in retrospect, it has become Refrain sang. political just by being by a mixed »Magical World« wurde von group who made all these personal einer Gruppe mit dem Namen Rotary (clockwise from top left) Magic & Loss, installation view, “More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles,” songs about change in a time of Connection aufgenommen und von Sidney Marabou Park, Stockholm, 2006 great upheaval. I was interested Barnes im Jahre 1968 geschrieben. Es ist Magic & Loss, research photos, Amsterdam, 2005 in the possibility of being able to reizvoll, denn es scheint sehr persönlich (What How and for Whom) to be a HS: Du hast einmal gesagt, dass deine express something personal with a zu sein; aber ich finde auch, dass es ein part of Normalisation, an exhibition Filme ihren Ausgangspunkt in Bildern, voice of one’s own in the midst of a Lied über Umgestaltungsprozesse ist. about the hurried adjustment to Träumen oder Liedern haben, die dir eine rapid course of events. †e song is Minnie Riperton singt »Warum willst the European Union that Croatia is Zeit lang durch den Kopf gegangen sind, performed by a group of children du mich aus diesem Traum aufwecken? undergoing. I had travelled before ehe du dich daranmachst, um diese herum in a cultural center in Dubrava – Es interessiert mich nicht!«. In in Albania, Serbia, and Romania, ein Werk aufzubauen. Magical World wurde outside Zagreb. †e building was diesem Lied steckt ein sehr trauriges but not in Croatia. I don’t think it in einem Kulturzentrum in der Nähe von designed by one of the experts of Gefühl, und es zeigt zugleich eine sehr was a coincidence that this song Zagreb gedreht und steht mit dem Lied similar cultural centers in former stolze und anmassende Einstellung: appeared, but I wasn’t sure that it »Magical World« in Zusammenhang. Yugoslavia, and the construction »Komm nicht her und versuche, mich would be relevant there and then. Der Film zeigt eine Gruppe von Kindern, was initiated under an economically zu ändern. – Ich bin wie ich bin.« Es ist I had an image in my mind and wie sie damit beschäftigt ist, eben dieses prosperous period during the auch hervorzuheben, dass die Rotary I felt that I had to bring it out to Lied einzustudieren. nineteen-eighties. When war broke Connection, als das Lied herauskam, eine 60 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 61

be impossible for the children to Karriere. Dieses Zentrum ist noch nicht sing the song in English. I myself fertiggestellt, und im Grunde löst es sich thought it was complicated to make in seine Bestandteile auf. them do it. But that was also one Ich sehe diese Situation als für of the interesting aspects. If I was Kroatien bezeichnend an. Als die to come back in a year or two, Unabhängigkeit kam, wurde das eine I’m sure the situation would be System über Nacht durch ein anderes completely different. ersetzt; für viele Menschen war dies ein traumatischer Prozess, bei dem alles Alte HS: In your exhibition at unterschiedslos weggeworfen wurde. Als Marabou Park in Stockholm, ich dort ankam, wurde der erste Teil der the documentation from the You TV-Serie »Idol« gestartet. Es war exakt Don’t Love Me Yet project was dasselbe – jeder musste sich angleichen also shown, which was a long- und sich mit jedem anderen vergleichen term collaboration with Index lassen. Und jeder musste in der Lage (the Swedish Contemporary Art sein, Englisch zu sprechen – und das in Foundation). It’s an unusual Kroatien, wo man den Menschen erst Magical World, video stills, 2005 project that includes the filmYou kürzlich erlaubt hat, ihre eigene Sprache out, the architect moved to Africa der ersten rassisch gemischten Bands war. Don’t Love Me Yet (2003) that zu sprechen. Es war extrem schwierig and started up a new career. Ihre Musik war nicht explizit politisch, shows a group of people during a und zeitaufwendig, Magical World zu †e center still isn’t finished, aber zurückblickend betrachtet ist sie recording of Roky Erickson’s song realisieren. Viele Menschen dachten, and is basically falling apart. politisch geworden – einfach dadurch, dass “You don’t love me yet” from 1984, dass es für Kinder unmöglich wäre, das I perceive this situation gerade eine gemischte Gruppe all diese and a tour where local artists are Lied auf Englisch zu singen. Ich selbst to be particular to Croatia; when persönlichen Lieder über Veränderung invited to perform a cover of the dachte, dass es schwierig wäre, sie dazu independence came, one system in einer Zeit grosser Umwälzungen same song. zu bringen. Aber dies war auch einer der was changed for another overnight. hervorgebracht hat. Es ging mir um die faszinierenden Aspekte. Wenn ich in ein For many, this was a traumatic Möglichkeit, mit einer eigenen Stimme JB: It all started in autumn 2002 oder zwei Jahren dorthin zurückkommen process where everything old, etwas Persönliches inmitten einer raschen when I invited twenty artists to sollte, wäre die Situation eine völlig without discernment, was tossed Abfolge von Ereignissen ausdrücken zu perform covers of “You don’t andere, da bin ich mir sicher. out. When I arrived there, the first können. love me yet” in the basement of season of the TV-series “Idol” was Das Lied wird von einer Gruppe Index in Stockholm. In theory, HS: In deiner Ausstellung in Marabou launched. It was the exact same von Kindern in einem Kulturzentrum a ridiculously simple form that Park in Stockholm zeigst du auch die thing—everybody had to adjust and in Dubrava in der Nähe von Zagreb during the course of the evening, Dokumentation des Projektes You Don’t be compared to each other. And vorgetragen. Dieses Gebäude wurde while the artists, one after the Love Me Yet, welches eine langfristige everybody had to be able to speak von einem der Experten für derartige other, repeated the song, created Zusammenarbeit mit Index [Schwedische English—and this is Croatia where Kulturzentren im früheren Jugoslawien a very special, indescribable Stiftung für zeitgenössische Kunst] war. they’ve just recently been allowed entworfen, und mit dem Bau wurde in atmosphere. †is project also Dieses ungewöhnliche Projekt umfasst to speak their own language. einem ökonomisch florierenden Zeitraum began with me having a song in den Film You Don’t Love Me Yet (2003), der It was extremely hard and time- während der 1980er Jahre begonnen. Als my head. I wasn’t so fond of this eine Gruppe von Leuten während einer consuming to realize Magical World. der Krieg ausbrach, zog der Architekt song, but it stuck in my mind, and Aufnahme von Roky Ericksons Lied »You Many people thought that it would nach Afrika und begann dort eine neue I kept thinking about it because it’s Don’t Love Me Yet« von 1984 zeigt, sowie 62 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 63 eine Tournee, bei der örtliche Künstler gebeten werden, eine Cover-Version eben dieses Liedes vorzutragen.

JB: Es begann alles im Herbst 2002, als ich 20 Künstler einlud, Cover-Versionen von »You Don’t Love Me Yet« im Kellergeschoss von Index in Stockholm vorzutragen. Eine in der †eorie lächerlich einfache Form, die im Verlauf des Abends, als die Künstler einer nach dem anderen das Lied wiederholten, eine sehr besondere, kaum zu beschreibende Atmosphäre erschuf. Auch dieses Projekt begann damit, dass mir ein Lied durch den Kopf ging. Ich mochte das Lied nicht You Don’t Love Me Yet, video stills, 2003 so besonders, doch es war in meinem Kopf, und ich musste immer daran so hard to get one’s head around. denken, weil es sehr schwierig ist, so etwas It fit into a disillusioned feeling zu begreifen. Es passte zu dem Gefühl der that I had that, not only do we Desillusionierung, das ich hatte: Es muss have to achieve a successful life, uns nicht nur gelingen, ein erfolgreiches we also have to achieve successful Leben zu führen, wir müssen auch noch relationships. Should one postpone erfolgreiche Beziehungen haben. living together with a partner Sollte man es hinausschieben, mit einem until one has accomplished one’s Partner zusammenzuleben, bis man sein own “thing”?—Live alone or live eigenes »Ding« zu Ende gebracht hat? together?—†at is the question. – »allein leben oder zusammenleben?«, das How can one speak about these ist hier die Frage. Wie kann man über diese things without making it a boring Dinge sprechen, ohne ein langweiliges problem? How can I catch that Problem daraus zu machen? Wie kann feeling without having to say it? ich dieses Gefühl einfangen, ohne es More than any other film,You aussprechen zu müssen? Mehr als jeder Don’t Love Me Yet was a catalyst. andere Film war You Don’t Love Me Yet A project, in the shape of a cover, ein Katalysator. Ein Projekt in der Gestalt that deals with getting out of einer Cover-Version, bei dem es darum oneself. †at these things can geht, aus sich herauszugehen und diese melt together by setting up a Dinge miteinander verschmelzen zu lassen. situation where people, by their Indem man eine Situation arrangiert, in You Don’t Love Me Yet, documentation material on DVDs, participation, can themselves der die Leute durch ihre Teilnahme selbst from Tour 2002-2005, installation view, “Songs, Cities & experience what it means. erfahren können, was das bedeutet. Circles,” Basis, Frankfurt am Rhein, 2006 64 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 65

you are. If you ask artists about und ihre Verehrung zu erweisen. In which artists they’ve been inspired der Welt der Kunst muss man ständig by they’ll often say, “Oh, I never beweisen, wie einzigartig man ist. Wenn look at art.” It’s something artists man Künstler danach fragt, von welchen are not generous with. If an artist anderen Künstlern sie inspiriert worden makes a tribute or a paraphrase, sind, werden sie oft antworten: »Oh, ich it’s usually something that is being achte nie auf Kunst!« Das ist ein †ema, theorized or problematized. bei dem Künstler sehr zurückhaltend sind. Wenn ein Künstler einem anderen HS: But paraphrases and homages Anerkennung zollt oder eine Paraphrase can be loving even if they ausführt, ist das gewöhnlich etwas, problematize. worüber man theoretisiert oder das man hinterfragt. JB: Absolutely. But apart from that, I think it’s very interesting, HS: Aber Paraphrasen und Hommagen not only because of the declaration können liebevoll sein, selbst wenn man sie of love, but because the letting go hinterfragt. You Don’t Love Me Yet, production still, Atlantis Studio, 2003 of oneself musically often results †e event from Index was Diese Veranstaltung von Index in music that is more interesting JB: Absolut. Aber abgesehen davon glaube then repeated in fifteen different wurde dann in 15 verschiedenen than the music the artist normally ich, dass das sehr aufschlussreich ist, nicht cities including Östersund, Ystad, Städten wie Östersund, Ystad, Chicago, creates. nur wegen der Liebeserklärung, sondern Chicago, Helsinki, and Utrecht, Helsinki und Utrecht wiederholt, wo auch wegen des musikalischen »Sich- where local artists continued to lokale Künstler weiterhin dieses Lied HS: Paradoxically, the uniqueness gehen-Lassens«, das oft zu einer Musik interpret the song, which now interpretierten, welches jetzt in der of the artist often becomes even führt, die ausdrucksvoller ist als die, die exists in a maddening 150 versions. schier unglaublichen Zahl von 150 more manifest in a cover. Speaking der Künstler normalerweise hervorbringt. †e project developed in such a way Versionen existiert. Das Projekt hat sich of references and tributes—my last as to allow the venues to arrange the in einer Weise entwickelt, die es den question is usually what inspired HS: Paradoxerweise wird die event themselves, which turned the Veranstaltungsorten erlaubt, dieses Event the artist I’m interviewing. Einzigartigkeit des Künstlers in einer event itself into a cover. †e filmYou selbst zu arrangieren, wodurch das Event Cover-Version oft greifbarer. Da wir Don’t Love Me Yet, with a version selbst in eine Cover-Version verwandelt JB: Before I moved to Stockholm, gerade von Verehrung und Wertschätzung of the song recorded by a group of wurde. Der Film You Don’t Love Me Yet I visited the city and went to sprechen … meine letzte Frage ist artists together in Atlantis Studio, – mit einer Version des Liedes, die von see a Sophie Calle exhibition at gewöhnlich, was den Künstler, den ich was my “version” of the song, einer Gruppe von Künstlern im Atlantis- Kulturhuset in 1991. I think it’s still gerade interviewe, inspiriert hat. where I got to arrange the song. In Studio gemeinsam aufgenommen wurde one of my strongest art experiences. music, covers are made all the time, – war meine »Version« des Liedes, zu der JB: Bevor ich nach Stockholm and I like the way they’re made as ich gelangte, um das Lied zu arrangieren. HS: Did any Swedish artists gezogen bin, besuchte ich einmal declarations of love and how this In der Musik gibt es ständig Cover- inspire you? diese Stadt und ging in eine Sophie- enables the artists to offer their Versionen, und ich mag die Art, wie sie Calle-Ausstellung im Kulturhuset, das inspiration and their references to als Liebeserklärungen gemacht werden JB: Ola Billgren was one of my war im Jahre 1991. Ich glaube, dass das the audience. In the art world, you und wie sie es den Künstlern ermöglichen, early favorites. Apart from that, noch immer eine meiner intensivsten have to keep showing how unique dem Publikum ihre Inspiration anzubieten I really like diverse artists like Kunsterfahrungen ist. 66 More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles 67 †e main character in the film Menschen in sich endlos wiederholenden leaves and comes back while the Ereignissen fest. others remain. At the same time, the loops convey a pattern, an JB: Ja. Ich kann von diesen Loops nicht ongoing activity, like in Magical wegkommen. Es fing alles mit Project World where there is an ongoing for a Revolution an, wo der Loop zu process of learning and adaptation. einem wichtigen Teil des Inhaltes wurde I’m obsessed by circularity and – der sich in Zeit und Raum ständig retrospection in general. wiederholenden Idee der Revolution. Der Hauptdarsteller dieses Films geht weg und kehrt zurück, während die anderen dableiben. Gleichzeitig vermitteln die Loops ein Muster einer andauernden Aktivität wie etwa in Magical World, wo ein andauernder Lern- und Anpassungsprozess stattfindet. Notice board in the studio, photo, 2004 Ich bin ganz allgemein von kreisförmig verlaufenden Bewegungen und einer Magnus Bärtås, Karl Holmqvist, HS: Hat dich irgendein schwedischer zurückblickenden Sichtweise besessen. Ola Pehrson, and Aleksandra Mir. Künstler inspiriert? John Cassavetes, the director, is a huge source of inspiration for me. JB: Ola Billgren war einer meiner frühen All his films are about humanity Lieblingskünstler. Abgesehen davon mag and how we live, how complex it is, ich wirklich unterschiedliche Künstler Photo from the show, “More Films about Songs, that people often live in a way that wie Magnus Bärtås, Karl Holmqvist, Cities & Circles,” 2006 they might not want to. Maybe one Ola Pehrson and Aleksandra Mir. doesn’t see the inspiration from Der Regisseur John Cassavetes ist für Cassavetes explicitly in what I do, mich eine riesige Inspirationsquelle. but that’s what I keep coming back In all seinen Filmen geht es um das to, how does one want to live? Menschliche und darum, wie wir leben, wie vielschichtig unser Leben ist – dass die HS: †ere are a lot of people stuck Menschen oft auf eine Weise leben, die sie in things that they try to get out of eigentlich gar nicht wollen. Vielleicht wird in Cassavetes films. People in your in dem, was ich erschaffe, die Inspiration films are stuck in looped events. von Cassavetes nicht offensichtlich, aber ich beziehe mich immer wieder darauf: JB: Yes, I can’t get away from these »Wie will man leben?« loops. It all began with Project for a Revolution where the loop HS: Es gibt in Cassavetes Filmen eine became an important part of the Menge von Menschen, die in Dingen content with, in time and space, feststecken, aus denen sie herauskommen the revolving idea of revolution. wollen. In deinen Filmen stecken die 68 69

Another Album preparations, photos, Zagreb, 2005 70 Forever Changes 71 Forever Changes

A Conversation between Johanna Billing & Philipp Kaiser Philipp Kaiser: The early video Philipp Kaiser: Die frühe Videoarbeit work Where She Is at (2001) seems Where She Is at (2001) scheint für dein to be prototypical for your work. Werk geradezu prototypisch zu sein. †e antagonistic configuration of Die antagonistische Anordnung von the individual and society as well Individuum und Gesellschaft sowie as the dialectic structure of their deren dialektische Abhängigkeitsstruktur dependence is a recurring theme. ziehen sich wie ein roter Faden durch In other pieces, the individual is deine Arbeit. In anderen Werken wird der isolated through close-ups or given Einzelne durch Close-ups isoliert, oder the role of the singer, as in Magical aber ihm kommt wie in Magical World World (2005). What interests you in (2005) die Rolle des Sängers zu. Was this constellation? interessiert dich an dieser Konstellation?

Johanna Billing: †is dialectic Johanna Billing: Diese dialektische structure that you refer to is not Struktur, auf die du dich beziehst, ist always so consciously planned, but nicht immer so bewusst geplant. Aber ich I guess it is something I apply as a denke, sie ist etwas, das ich sozusagen kind of tool in order to make other als Werkzeug einsetze, um andere Dinge

†is Is How We Walk on the Moon, production of window display signs for the accompanying music program, curated by Emily Roff, Tracer Trails, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2007

Magical World, video still, 2005 things visible. By setting up quite sichtbar zu machen. Wenn ich ganz simple double configurations as einfache Doppelkonfigurationen als eine a kind of frame, such as now and Art Rahmen aufbaue oder das Individuum then, or the individual in relation in einen Bezug zum Kollektiv setze, to the collective, I can allow kann ich es mir erlauben, mich auf das myself to concentrate on what is zu konzentrieren, was sich dazwischen in-between, this huge gray area befindet, auf diesen riesigen grauen that is too often left out. In today’s Bereich, der allzu oft weggelassen wird. 72 Forever Changes 73 media driven world, where society In der heutigen, von Medien gelenkten demands a quick categorization of Welt, in der die Gesellschaft eine schnelle everything, things get simplified Kategorisierung von allem fordert, and generalized. It’s either “yes” werden die Dinge vereinfacht und or “no,” but there is no room for verallgemeinert – es gibt entweder ein Ja “I don’t know.” On another almost oder ein Nein, aber keinen Raum für ein sub-conscious level, I recognize »Ich weiss nicht«. Auf einer anderen, fast that, in order to understand the unterbewussten Ebene gebe ich zu, dass here and now, I look behind me and ich, um das Hier und Jetzt zu verstehen, start counting backwards to track hinter mich schaue und rückwärts zu the changes that have lead us to zählen beginne, um die Veränderungen zu where we are today. verfolgen, die uns dahin geführt haben, wo wir uns heute befinden. PhK: In your work, a song is often performed, but also, a PhK: In deiner Arbeit wird oftmals specific ability or skill. In silent ein Song aufgeführt, aber auch eine choreography, what appears to be spezifische Fähigkeit oder Fertigkeit. programmatic behavior patterns In stillen Choreografien entfalten are developed according to invisible sich nach unsichtbaren Regeln rules. So, in Magical World, the Handlungsmuster, die wie programmiert Croatian children sing a song by erscheinen. So singen die kroatischen the American singer Sidney Barnes Kinder in Magical World zwar den Song †is Is How We Walk on the Moon, installation view and stage for from Rotary Connection—that is, des amerikanischen Sängers Sidney the accompanying music program, curated by Emily Roff, Tracer on the one hand, they appropriate Barnes von Rotary Connection, das Trails, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2007 what is for them a barely heisst, sie eignen sich einerseits diese understandable language, and on für sie kaum verständliche Sprache an, a delicate balance because the gesagt hast, um ein labiles Gleichgewicht, the other hand (so to speak), the andererseits, so liesse sich sagen, singt specific situations that people get weil die spezifischen Situationen, in song sings the children. How would der Song die Kinder. Wie würdest du invited into often involve activities die die Leute hineinversetzt werden, you describe the delicate balance die delikate Balance zwischen dem they are not totally used to, so this oft Tätigkeiten mit einbeziehen, an between determinism and hopeful Determinismus und der hoffnungsvollen can sometimes cause skepticism die sie nicht unbedingt gewöhnt sind, self-improvement? Selbstentfaltung beschreiben? and feelings of insecurity. Although weshalb dies bisweilen Skepsis und these situations and activities are Verunsicherung verursachen kann. JB: I think in my work, within JB: Ich denke, dass es in meiner Arbeit, never risky in any ‘real’ way, they Obwohl diese Situationen und Tätigkeiten the rules I have put up for myself, innerhalb der Regeln, die ich für mich can possibly be experienced as niemals riskant sind, können sie auf eine there is always room for free selbst aufgestellt habe, immer Raum für such, since the older we get, the »reale« Weise eventuell in diesem Sinne will. †e work even depends on den freien Willen gibt. Die Arbeit ist sogar more resistant we become toward erlebt werden. Denn je älter wir werden, free will, nobody is forced to do vom freien Willen abhängig. Niemand situations where we have to learn umso resistenter werden wir gegenüber anything and the same goes for the wird gezwungen, irgendetwas zu tun, things from scratch, and where we Situationen, in denen wir wieder ganz von children. In fact, it was particularly und das gilt auch für die Kinder, was für are left a bit blank or at a loss in vorn etwas lernen müssen und wir in den important to me in relation to mich bei dieser Arbeit wirklich besonders the eyes of others, and also in the Augen der anderen und auch in unseren this work. But as you said, it is wichtig war. Aber es handelt sich, wie du eyes of ourselves. But I think that eigenen Augen ein wenig ratlos oder 74 Forever Changes 75 by putting ourselves through this verlegen dastehen. Aber ich denke, dass, available. I find that in working und Atmosphären zu kommunizieren perhaps uncomfortable feeling we wenn wir ein vielleicht unangenehmes with sound and music, I manage to und zu porträtieren, zu einem der can find out something. †is kind Gefühl auf uns nehmen, wir etwas get closer to what I want to grasp. mächtigsten Werkzeuge wird, die es gibt. of self-improvement, if you like, is herausfinden können. Wenn man auf diese If you look at my silent films they Ich bin der Ansicht, dass es mir gelingt, perhaps not about the kind of skills Weise, wenn du so willst, an sich selbst are also about music in the way that wenn ich mit Ton und Musik arbeite, that you are referring to, for me, it arbeitet, handelt es sich nicht um die Art the story is told and how the editing dem näherzukommen, was ich begreifen is about connecting to something von Fähigkeiten, auf die du dich beziehst; is structured according to specific möchte. Was meine Stummfilme angeht, temporarily lost within. für mich geht es darum, Kontakt zu etwas rhythms in both sound and image. so haben auch diese mit Musik zu tun herzustellen, das in unserem Inneren – und zwar in der Art, wie die Geschichte PhK: In many works, music vorübergehend verloren gegangen ist. PhK: In Another Album, (2006) erzählt und wie der Schnitt spezifischen generates a sense of belonging, music is also inscribed as a Rhythmen entsprechend von Ton und Bild a simple form of collectivity. PhK: Musik generiert in vielen Arbeiten horizon of the recent past. Can strukturiert wird. Why this affinity with music? eine Zusammengehörigkeit, eine einfache you elaborate on Another Album Form der Vergemeinschaftung. Warum in relation to Magical World? PhK: Insbesondere in Another JB: I have worked in parallel with diese Nähe zur Musik? Album (2006) ist der Musik ebenso art and music for as long as I JB: †ere are so many ein zeitgeschichtlicher Horizont can remember, so working with JB: Ich habe in der Kunst und in der consequences of the dramatic eingeschrieben. Wie siehst du Another music is really a part of what I Musik parallel gearbeitet. Denn solange events of the nineteen-nineties that Album in Bezug auf Magical World? do, although I don’t perceive it ich zurückdenken kann, bildet diese people are now dealing with, in as playing a bigger part in my Form von Arbeit mit Musik wirklich the countries of ex-Yugoslavia, and JB: Es gibt so viele Konsequenzen der work than other genres that also einen Teil von dem, was ich erschaffe, so many serious ones, of course. dramatischen Ereignisse der 1990er Jahre, inspire me, such as film, sculpture, obwohl ich nicht der Ansicht bin, dass Working with the filmMagical die die Menschen in den Ländern des choreography, and architecture. sie in meiner Arbeit eine grössere Rolle for instance. On the other hand, spielt als andere Genres, die mich music is a very powerful medium, ebenfalls inspirieren, wie zum Beispiel so whenever you invite it, there is Film, Bildhauerei, Choreografie und always a risk that it will dominate. Architektur. Andererseits ist die Musik ein One of the reasons to why I decided sehr mächtiges Medium, deshalb besteht, to start working with film as a wenn man sie mit einbezieht, immer das medium was the simple fact that Risiko, dass sie dominant wird. Einer sound is half of its consistency. der Gründe, weshalb ich beschlossen So, it was a straightforward way habe, mit dem Medium Film zu arbeiten, to incorporate one of my biggest lag in der einfachen Tatsache, dass der interests and, at the same time, Ton die Hälfte seines Wesens ausmacht. be able to continue working Auf diese Weise führte ein direkter Weg within, what I consider to be, an dorthin, eines meiner grössten Anliegen experimental field. I also think that einzubeziehen und gleichzeitig in der Lage when trying to communicate and zu sein, weiterhin innerhalb dessen zu portray certain situations, feelings, arbeiten, was ich als ein Experimentierfeld and atmospheres, sound becomes betrachte. Ich denke auch, dass der Ton, Another Album, production still, Krapanj, 2006 one of the most powerful tools wenn ich versuche, gewisse Situationen 76 Forever Changes 77

World certainly brought up a lot ehemaligen Jugoslawien jetzt beschäftigen, of these things in different ways. so viele ernste Konsequenzen. Die What was interesting to me, having Arbeit an dem Film Magical World spent some more time there, was hat sicherlich eine Menge von diesen also finding out about smaller Dingen auf unterschiedliche Weisen zur issues which are still of great Sprache gebracht. Nachdem ich dort importance to people, things that noch einige Zeit verbracht hatte, lag are affecting their personal and mir daran, Näheres über die kleineren everyday lives in a very emotional Probleme herauszufinden, die für die way. In this case, I was struck Menschen noch immer von grosser by the fact that the rock scene in Wichtigkeit sind – Dinge, die auf ihr Croatia, which was very vivid and persönliches und alltägliches Leben in flourishing during the nineteen- einer sehr emotionalen Weise Einfluss seventies and eighties, seemed ausüben. In diesem Fall war ich von yet to have recovered from the der Tatsache beeindruckt, dass die disrupting events of the nineties. Rockszene in Kroatien, die in den 1970er During the process of making the und 1980er Jahren sehr lebendig war und film, it became interesting for me to florierte, sich anscheinend noch nicht connect back to music journalism von den Ereignissen des Umbruchs in that I was involved in, in the den 1990er Jahren erholt hatte. Während nineties. Perhaps this project would des Prozesses, als ich an diesem Film never have happened if I had not arbeitete, hatte ich die Idee, wieder eine had this background which taught Verbindung zum Musikjournalismus me a certain way to listen and take herzustellen, mit dem ich mich in den in music, and to feel curiosity about 1990ern beschäftigt hatte. Vielleicht wäre its whole existence: How it came es nie zu diesem Projekt gekommen, about; Why? When? Where it came wenn ich nicht diesen Hintergrund gehabt from, its reason, and so on. For hätte. Er lehrte mich eine bestimmte Another Album I ended up including Weise, Musik zu hören und einzubeziehen some of my research, which became sowie eine Neugier bezüglich ihrer liner notes that accompany the ganzen Existenz zu entwickeln: wie sie film. †rough a closer reading of entstanden ist, warum, wann, woher sie the liner notes, that detail a mix of kam, ihre Gründe und so weiter. Für the origins of songs the group in Another Album bezog ich letzten Endes the film is reciting, their personal einiges von meinen Untersuchungen mit interpretations and the more trivial ein: Es entstand ein Begleitheft zum Film. discography facts of the bands and Durch eine eingehendere Lektüre des their respective musical careers, a Begleitheftes – eine Mischung aus den history of a ‘scene’ is revealed. Ursprüngen der Lieder, die die Gruppe During this so-called “New in diesem Film spielt, ihren persönlichen Wave” era, the whole of Yugoslavia Interpretationen und den trivialeren Another Album, folder, accompanying the film, 2006 78 Forever Changes 79 boasted some of the most diverse Daten der Diskografie der Bands und ihrer and progressive rock music in jeweiligen musikalischen Karrieren – wird Eastern Europe. State-run record die Geschichte einer »Szene« enthüllt. labels generated an enormous Während der Ära der sogenannten amount of rock recordings, which »New Wave« rühmte sich das gesamte were distributed and promoted Jugoslawien, eine der vielfältigsten und throughout the republics. With progressivsten Rockmusikszenen in the 1991 break-up of the pan- Osteuropa zu haben. Staatlich geführte Yugoslavian market, however, Schallplattenlabels produzierten eine large-scale record production and enorme Anzahl von Rockaufnahmen, distribution was suppressed. A lot welche überall in allen Teilrepubliken Make It Happen on Tour, compilation CD, of bands had to break up and move verbreitet und vertrieben wurden. Mit “All songs are sad songs”, 2001 Make It Happen, various event posters, to different countries. It has also dem Zerbrechen des gesamtjugoslawischen 1998-2000 been much more difficult for bands Marktes im Jahre 1991 wurden jedoch to tour as frequently as before, die massenhafte Schallplattenproduktion and for the music itself to even und -verbreitung unterdrückt. Eine exist sometimes within some of Reihe von Bands musste sich auflösen the countries. So, when we see the und in verschiedene Länder gehen; es group of people in Another Album— wurde für Bands auch viel schwieriger, some of whom I met while working so häufig wie früher auf Tournee zu Magical World Make It Happen, Vega Make It Happen, Hell on on the project sitting gehen, und für die Musik selbst war in 7" vinyl, 1999 Wheels, 7" vinyl, 1998 Make It Happen on Tour 2, live event, Superflex even today for hours together, einigen der Länder manchmal ihre blosse Studio, Copenhagen 2001 singing some of their favorite songs Existenz gefährdet. Wenn wir deshalb die from this period, to me this is Gruppe von Menschen in Another Album not only nostalgic, but it also says sehen – einige von ihnen traf ich, während something about their loss, which ich an dem Projekt Magical World arbeitete –, few people talk about today. wie sie sogar heute noch stundenlang zusammensitzen und einige ihrer PhK: In the end of the nineties, Lieblingslieder aus jener Zeit singen, you founded, together with your so ist das für mich nicht nur nostalgisch, Make It Happen, Chihuahua, Make It Happen, Revlon 9, brother, the music label Make It sondern es sagt auch etwas darüber 7" vinyl, 1998 7" vinyl, 1999 Happen. Make It Happen on Tour 2, live event, Rooseum, To what extent are the aus, was diese Menschen verloren Malmö, 2001 two contexts of music and art haben und worüber heute nur wenige differentiated for you? sprechen.

JB: When talking about the artistic PhK: Ende der 1990er Jahre hast production of music and art works, du gemeinsam mit deinem Bruder there is, for me, no difference. das Musiklabel Make It Happen It is more the systems and their gegründet. Inwiefern unterscheiden Make It Happen on Tour 1, Make It Happen featuring Distro, production different forms of presentation and sich die beiden Kontexte Musik und Park; Park the bus, Momentum, Moss, 2000 still, “Baltic Babel,” Rooseum, Malmö, 2002 distribution that treat the outcomes Kunst für dich? 80 Forever Changes 81 so disparately, and that can JB: Hinsichtlich der künstlerischen refusal to end stories. And I guess PhK: Nahezu alle deine Arbeiten zeigen sometimes create filters between Produktion von Musik und Kunstwerken the loops to some extent are about Situationen, in denen sich etwas ändert listeners and viewers. When we besteht für mich kein Unterschied. a way for me to leave things open oder verändert hat. Sämtliche deiner started the label in 1997, there was Es sind vielmehr die Systeme und ihre ended. We are back again to the Videos sind jedoch geloopt, so dass im suddenly a renewed interest in unterschiedlichen Präsentations- und desire to stay a bit longer in this in- Laufe der Zeit alle Veränderung hinfällig performance expressed by the art Verbreitungsformen, die die Resultate between place and not forcing the wird. world, which also embraced music so ungleich behandeln, und dies kann work too quickly to a conclusion. in a wider sense. I sometimes had manchmal Filter zwischen Zuhörern But in some of the films, the JB: Einer meiner Freunde fand kürzlich the impression that people wanted und Zuschauern aufbauen. Als wir im loops are also about the feeling auch, dass es sich bei den Loops um eine the music to sweep through the Jahre 1997 mit diesem Label begannen, of being stuck in something, a Weigerung handelt, die Geschichten zu galleries and institutions with gab es plötzlich ein erneuertes Interesse way of doing, thinking, or living einem Ende zu bringen. Und ich meine, fresh air and life—and with parties an Performance, das von der Kunstwelt that you cannot get out of. Even dass es bei den Loops in gewissem Masse of course! So the label was often zum Ausdruck gebracht wurde und das though we, at times, chose these um ein Verfahren geht, die Dinge für mich invited to be part of shows and auch Musik in einem weiter gefassten situations ourselves, they can keep unabgeschlossen zu lassen. Da sind wir events, and it was, of course, fun Sinne mit einbezog. Ich hatte manchmal us prisoners in our own lives. But wieder bei dem Wunsch, ein wenig länger and fruitful to arrange music events den Eindruck, die Menschen wollten, the looped repetitions are not in diesem Zwischenbereich zu verweilen for different audiences, on different dass die Musik wie ein frischer Wind mit always about something negative und die Arbeit nicht zu schnell zu einem stages. But our label stopped neuem Leben – und natürlich mit Partys! and I do not perceive them as Abschluss zu zwingen. Aber in einigen taking part, after a while, because – durch die Galerien und Institutionen making changes irrelevant, as you der Filme geht es bei den Loops um das one of the implications of these fegt. Deshalb wurde das Label häufig dazu mention. †e pace that comes with Gefühl, in etwas festzustecken – in einer collaborations with the art world eingeladen, an Shows und Veranstaltungen the format of the loop can create a Art des Handelns, Denkens oder Lebens –, was that often the label was treated teilzunehmen; natürlich machte es Spass, break with the rapid everyday. So, aus dem man nicht mehr herauskommt. as something interesting: “Look, und es brachte auch gute Resultate, although the loop in itself is never- Obwohl wir uns diese Situationen an artist also working with a record für unterschiedliches Publikum auf ending, it carries the potential to manchmal selbst aussuchen, können sie label! How fascinating!” But the unterschiedlichen Bühnen Musikevents break with its surrounding the uns in unserem eigenen Leben gefangen music we put out tended to be zu organisieren. Aber unser Label loop provides a way of creating halten. Bei den geloopten Wiederholungen treated as a representation of music machte nach einer gewissen Zeit nicht a temporary room, a ‘timespace’ geht es jedoch nicht immer um etwas rather than on its own merit, which mehr mit, weil eine der Auswirkungen from which the work then Negatives, und ich bin nicht der Ansicht, was, of course, the opposite of der Zusammenarbeit mit der Kunstwelt communicates. dass dadurch Veränderungen hinfällig what we were trying to pursue darin bestand, dass das Label oft wie werden, wie du gesagt hast. Das Tempo, with the label. etwas Interessantes angesehen wurde: PhK: Is your work utopian? das das Format des Loops vermittelt, »Schau, ein Künstler, der auch mit kann eine Unterbrechung des eiligen PhK: Virtually all your works show einem Label arbeitet! Wie faszinierend!« JB: No. I think the set up for art, Alltags bewirken. Deshalb trägt der situations in which something has Aber es bestand die Tendenz, die Musik, in general, can be perceived as Loop, obwohl er als solcher niemals been changed or transformed. die wir herausbrachten, eher als eine utopian, but the more specific endet, das Potenzial in sich, einen However, your videos are looped Darstellungsform von Musik als aufgrund settings that I create for the Bruch mit seiner Umgebung zu bewirken – so that in any case, in the course of ihres eigenen Wertes zu betrachten, was different films, regardless if they der Loop bietet eine Möglichkeit, einen time, all changes become irrelevant. natürlich das Gegenteil von dem war, are more true to reality or more zeitlich befristeten Raum zu erschaffen, was wir mit dem Label zu erreichen constructed or ‘unreal,’ are not einen »Raum in der Zeit« –, von JB: A friend of mine also recently versuchten. utopian, but can refer to situations dem aus die Arbeit dann kommuniziert. found the loops to be about a that are dysfunctional and 82 Forever Changes 83

JB: I don’t think so myself. I think beschreiben. Where She Is at, die you ask because the earlier works exponierte junge Frau auf dem are made in more local contexts Sprungturm, wie auch deine within which it is perhaps easier Abschlussarbeit an der Konstfack in for others to locate me as a person, Stockholm erinnern jedoch ebenso daran, both geographically, and in terms wie sehr zumindest deine frühen Werke of a certain stage in life. †e more von einer selbstreflexiven Dimension, recent works come from a mixture von Überlegungen deiner eigenen Rolle of personal experiences, memories, als Künstlerin geprägt waren. Ist diese and things I’m dealing with. Even Selbstreflexion verloren gegangen? when my projects are made in other countries, I always try to enter JB: Ich selbst glaube das nicht. Ich denke, them in a personal way in order du fragst das, weil die früheren Arbeiten to avoid, as much as possible, a in lokaleren Kontexten realisiert wurden, situation where I’m standing on the innerhalb derer es für andere vielleicht outside looking in. einfacher ist, mich als Person sowohl geografisch als auch hinsichtlich einer PhK: Your most recent work †is bestimmten Lebensphase zu lokalisieren. †is Is How We Walk on the Moon, installation process, window display signs, Is How We Walk on the Moon (2007) Die neueren Werke entstammen einer Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2007 shown at documenta 12 began with Mischung aus persönlichen Erfahrungen, frustrating. I think that sometimes PhK: Ist deine Arbeit utopisch? the invitation by the Collective Erinnerungen sowie Dingen, mit denen people assume that my work is Gallery’s “One Mile” program, ich mich beschäftige. Auch wenn meine somehow utopian simply because JB: Nein. Ich denke, dass die Umstände to do a project in Edinburgh Projekte in anderen Ländern durchgeführt they portray people in groups. für die Kunst ganz allgemein als utopisch which was supposed to take place werden, versuche ich immer, auf eine angesehen werden können. Aber die within the one mile radius from persönliche Weise in sie hineinzugehen, PhK: Perhaps some of my spezifischeren Ausstattungen, die ich the gallery. Could you sketch out um so weit wie möglich eine Situation zu questions are misleading insofar für die verschiedenen Filme realisiere the process; how the work came vermeiden, in welcher ich aussen stehe as they suggest that your work – unabhängig davon, ob der Realität treu together and how you invited local und von dort aus hineinschaue. describes exclusively collective oder eher konstruiert oder »irreal« –, musicians to learn how to sail? processes. However, Where She sind nicht utopisch, sondern können sich Where do you get your ideas and PhK: Deine neueste Videoarbeit †is Is at—the exposed young woman auf Situationen beziehen, die gestört und how do you proceed with a new Is How We Walk on the Moon (2007), die on the diving platform—as well frustrierend sind. Ich denke, die Leute piece? auch auf der documenta 12 gezeigt wurde, as your MFA project at Konstfack nehmen manchmal an, dass meine Werke kam durch eine Einladung der Collective in Stockholm [University College irgendwie utopisch seien, einfach weil in JB: Even before going there I had Gallery in Edinburgh im Rahmen des of Arts, Crafts and Design] recall ihnen Menschen in Gruppen porträtiert listened to a lot of the bands from Programms »One Mile« zustande. Es ging how very much, at least, your early werden. this area, such as King Creosote, darum, ein Projekt zu entwickeln, welches work was marked by a self-reflexive James Yorkston, Unpoc, Pictish sich im Radius einer Meile von der dimension, by considerations of PhK: Vielleicht sind meine Fragen Trail. Many of them write about Galerie entfernt abspielt. Könntest du den your own role as an artist. Has this insofern irreführend, als dass sie the life at sea, sailors and captains, Arbeitsprozess erläutern und erzählen, self-reflection fallen by the wayside? suggerieren, deine Arbeit würde shipwrecks and lighthouses, wie es war, lokalen Musikern das Segeln ausschliesslich kollektive Prozesse directions and navigation. So, as beizubringen? Woher kommen überhaupt 84 Forever Changes 85 Pictish Trail from presence that the sea seems to konkrete Distanz existierte, und dies the Fence Collective playing live in Cellardyke, have in the culture and in peoples’ wurde für mich zu einem Ausgangspunkt. Home game Festival, minds and how that related to a Während der Zeit meiner Untersuchungen Anstruther, 2007 physical connection to it. gab es in Edinburgh – wie gegenwärtig Walking around in the auch in vielen anderen Städten – neue seaside area the constant tide Wohnkomplexe, die hier »Waterfront« movements were very present, and genannt werden und die praktisch auf dem that is something that I am not Ufer erbaut werden. Ganz plötzlich ist es used to seeing where I live. I found für die Menschen sehr wünschenswert, it quite amazing and powerful extrem nahe am Meer zu leben. Was ich somehow—our connection to the untersuchen wollte, indem ich diesen soon as I got to Edinburgh for the deine Ideen, und wie gehst du bei einer moon and its tidal forces, and the Film drehte, war deshalb diese ferne first visit, my immediate desire was neuen Arbeit vor? way it affects everyday life. And romantische Idee, diese sehr starke to find out where the sea was. Not this is how the old eighties Arthur Präsenz, die das Meer anscheinend in der being able to see it at first, I became JB: Sogar schon bevor ich nach Edinburgh Russell song “†is is how we walk Kultur und in den Köpfen der Menschen a bit obsessed with finding it, and, fuhr, hatte ich eine Menge von den on the moon,” which I had listened hat, und wie dies mit einer physischen at first, it struck me as almost a bit Bands aus dieser Gegend gehört wie to a couple of years earlier, popped Verbindung mit ihm zusammenhängt. strange that the city was hiding beispielsweise King Creosote, James up in my head again. Suddenly, the Wenn man in der Gegend am away from the sea, even though it Yorkston, Unpoc, Pictish Trail. Viele idea to work with this song and its Meer herumgeht, sind die konstanten was, obviously, out of respect for von ihnen schreiben über das Leben quite sparse lyrics, together with Gezeitenbewegungen sehr präsent; das the hard weather conditions of the auf See, über Matrosen und Kapitäne, musicians on string instruments— ist etwas, das ich dort, wo ich lebe, nicht North Sea. Later, after having lived Schiffswracks und Leuchttürme, somehow made sense. It connected zu sehen bekomme. Ich fand das ganz there for a while, I found out that Himmelsrichtungen und Navigation. both to Russell’s original music and erstaunlich und irgendwie beeindruckend: most of the people who wrote these Als ich zu meinem ersten Besuch nach to the physical sounds of the boat unsere Verbindung mit dem Mond und songs, and also many people from Edinburgh kam, war es aus diesem Grund and its surroundings. Again, my seinen Gezeitenkräften und die Art, the area, in general, had never been mein erster Wunsch, herauszufinden, wo idea for this film was about being in wie sich das auf das alltägliche Leben onboard a boat! I found this quite das Meer war. Da ich es zunächst nicht an uncertain situation, taking small auswirkt. Und so kam mir der alte Song fascinating and peculiar, why and entdecken konnte, wurde ich ein wenig steps in unknown territory, which von Arthur Russell aus den 1980er Jahren how this practical distance existed, davon besessen, es zu finden. Anfangs and this became some kind of a machte es auf mich einen etwas seltsamen †is Is How We Walk on the Moon, soundtrack starting point for me. During my Eindruck, dass sich die Stadt vor dem recording with Andreas period of research, there were, in Meer versteckte, obwohl es offensichtlich Söderström, Edinburgh, as in many other cities war, dass dies auf die ungünstigen production still, Up and Running Studio, at the moment, new developments, Wetterbedingungen der Nordsee Stockholm, 2007 housing complexes, here called the zurückzuführen ist. Später dann, nachdem (overleaf) †is Is How “Waterfront” being built practically ich eine Zeit lang dort gelebt hatte, fand We Walk on the Moon. on the shore. All of a sudden, it ich heraus, dass die meisten Leute, die Installation view, documenta 12, Kassel, 2007 is very desirable for people to live diese Lieder schrieben, und auch ganz extremely close to the sea. So, what allgemein viele Menschen aus dieser I wanted to explore in the making Gegend niemals auf einem Schiff gewesen of the film was perhaps this distant waren! Ich fand es ganz faszinierend romantic idea, the very strong und eigenartig, weshalb und wie diese 86 87 88 Forever Changes 89 simultaneously poses the question »†is is how we walk on the moon« JB: I realize more and more that, PhK: Viele deiner Werke scheinen what a big step could be today. plötzlich wieder in den Sinn, den ich on the one hand, my work can Experimenten ähnlich, die ohnehin von As I have mentioned elsewhere, einige Jahre früher gehört hatte. Auf be seen as conceptual, but at the einem Kontrollverlust geprägt sind. the big leaps forward that we take einmal bekam die Idee, mit diesem Lied same time, it can be looked at on nowadays, can sometimes be things und seinem ganz kurzen Text zu arbeiten a more abstract and experimental JB: Mir wird mehr und mehr klar, dass we do on a very personal level, like – zusammen mit Musikern, die auf level. When I say experimental, to mein Werk einerseits als konzeptuell finding some basic knowledge in Saiteninstrumenten spielen –, einen Sinn. me, this means that the work is, angesehen werden kann, aber gleichzeitig our lives that we had temporarily Es entstand eine Verbindung sowohl zu to a large extent, a result of things kann man es auf einer abstrakteren und lost contact with. Russells ursprünglicher Musik als auch happening in a situation that I experimentellen Ebene betrachten. I was also interested zu den konkreten Geräuschen des Schiffs cannot control. I would never reject Wenn ich experimentell sage, dann in sailing because, as a form of und seiner Umgebung. Bei meiner Idee footage, even if it wasn’t exactly bedeutet dies für mich, dass das Werk transportation, it is something für diesen Film ging es wieder darum, sich what I had imagined, I always work in hohem Ausmasse das Ergebnis von that we are not depending on, in einer ungewissen Situation zu befinden, with what I have got. †is is also Dingen darstellt, die in einer Situation at all, anymore. †ough totally kleine Schritte in einem unbekannten about trust, as I have said before, geschehen, die ich nicht kontrollieren unnecessary, it still provides one of Territorium zu unternehmen, womit sich trusting that what is around me is kann. Ich würde das aufgenommene the most unusual settings, in which gleichzeitig die Frage stellt, was denn interesting enough. Even if I have Filmmaterial niemals ablehnen, auch you are in direct contact with the heute ein grosser Schritt sein könnte. set up a conceptual frame before wenn es nicht exakt das war, was ich mir elements. It creates such an intense Wie ich an anderer Stelle erwähnt habe, setting out to film, I want to allow vorgestellt hatte; ich arbeite immer mit feeling being totally dependent on kann der grosse Sprung nach vorn, den myself to not analyze the work in dem, was ich erhalten habe. Das hat auch, and connected to the winds and wir heutzutage machen, manchmal in theory before it has been made. wie ich vorher gesagt habe, mit Vertrauen the weather around you. You get Dingen bestehen, die wir auf einer sehr I don’t want to get stuck in my own zu tun: darauf zu vertrauen, dass das, the feeling that you are, for a small persönlichen Ebene ausführen – wie etwa rules. So, it is about entering the was sich um mich herum befindet, fraction of time, in control of life. eine gewisse grundlegende Erkenntnis room of uncertainty and to stay interessant genug ist. Sogar wenn ich in unserem Leben zu finden, zu der there even though, for a control einen konzeptuellen Rahmen aufgestellt wir vorübergehend den Kontakt freak like me, it can, at times, be habe, bevor ich mich ans Filmen mache, verloren hatten. quite painful. möchte ich es mir selbst erlauben, das Mich faszinierte auch das Werk vor seiner Verwirklichung nicht Fahren mit Segelschiffen, weil es als theoretisch zu analysieren, denn ich will Transportmöglichkeit etwas darstellt, nicht in meinen eigenen Regeln gefangen auf das wir heute in keiner Weise mehr sein. Deshalb geht es darum, den Raum angewiesen sind. Obwohl es überhaupt der Ungewissheit zu betreten und dort nicht mehr notwendig ist, bietet es zu verbleiben – auch wenn das für einen noch immer eine der ungewöhnlichsten Kontroll-Freak wie mich manchmal ganz Umgebungen, in der man sich in direktem schmerzvoll sein kann. Kontakt mit den Elementen befindet. Es ruft ein derart intensives Gefühl hervor, †is Is How We Walk on the Moon, research photo, 2006 von den Winden und dem Wetter, die einen umgeben, völlig abhängig und PhK: A lot of your works seem to zugleich damit verbunden zu sein. Man be close to experiments that deal bekommt das Gefühl, für eine kurze Zeit with the loss of control in general. die Kontrolle über das Leben zu haben. 90 91

EXPANDED FOOTNOTES

Project for a Revolution, photo, 2000 92 93

contributions with them. †e planned screening of a visit by Projects for Revolution Yuri Gagarin to a children’s camp in Odessa, and a live shot of Earth from a Soviet weather satellite were scrapped. Rob Tuffnel If the height of Modernism was the evening of the June 25, 1967, then its sorry end was, I would argue, not the demolition of George Hellmuth’s and Minoru Yamasaki’s Pruitt-Igoe social housing development in St. Louis, at 3.32 pm on July 15, 1972 (as architectural historians will have us believe), but with the release, as a radio commercial, of “I’d like to buy the world a coke” by the New Seekers on February 12, 1971:

‘ I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love… I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company… It’s the real thing, Coke is what the world wants today.’

Project for a Revolution, video still, 2000 An accompanying television advertisement featured 500 In one of those conversations, a fellow writer once said to teenagers standing on a hillside outside Rome lip-syncing me that for him the height of the Modern movement was †e the song. †e apparently sincere belief in the transformative Beatles’ first performance of “All you need is love,” with lyrics power of ‘love’ of the late nineteen-sixties had quickly been which include, “there’s nothing you do that can’t be done,” appropriated by advertising executives and transformed into broadcasted live via a series of satellites as part of the world’s something that could be purchased (‘I’d like to buy the world first global telecast. a home and furnish it with love’). Richard Nixon liked the †is event was a perfect synthesis of technology, culture, song so much he invited the Anglo-Australian band to perform and secular belief. John Lennon had written the song especially at his Presidential inaugural ball in 1973. Within a few years, for the June 25, 1967 event. In the twenty-six nations who took Coca-Cola wasn’t only the world’s best selling soft drink, but the feed, it is estimated that as many as six hundred million executives of the soft drink company were advising the US people watched the two hour, black-and-white broadcast, Government on its foreign policy. Two Coca-Cola executives titled “Our World.” †e makers announced their project: “The were, later, appointed to Jimmy Carter’s cabinet. magic of space-age electronics to flash sound and visual images †e failure of the Modern movement or, less specifically, across lands, seas and time zones, fusing ‘yesterday,’ ‘today’ the marriage of the individual and the collective is a subject and ‘tomorrow’ into a globe-encircling ‘now.’” In addition to explored in the work of the contemporary artist Johanna the Beatles’ performance, highlights included Franco Zeffirelli Billing. A short film by the artist Project for a Revolution (2000) speaking from the set of his film adaptation of “Romeo and takes its inspiration from the opening sequence of Michelangelo Juliet” in Verona, Leonard Bernstein and Van Cliburn playing Antonioni’s film “Zabriskie Point” (1969). Billing’s film opens their pianos in New York, and an astronomer in Australia with a shot of a photocopier running, churning out sheets of describing the most distant known object in the universe. blank paper. In another room, a group of young people sits Amidst this utopian moment, however, many things in an institutional space apparently waiting for something to were, of course, in a state of upheaval. In protest against the happen, drinking coffee, and biting their nails. †e camera West’s response to the outbreak of the Six-Day War, the Soviet then cuts to a man running down a flight of stairs, leaving a Union pulled out of the project days before transmission, building. Eventually, the man arrives in the room where the taking Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany’s group has assembled, picks up a sheet of paper from a chair and 94 95

Milton Keynes, Utrecht and Leiden—the project spreading like a virus. To date, more than 100 versions have been performed. You Don’t Love Me Yet has also been made into a film that documents a performance of the song by a large ensemble of musicians and singers in an analogue recording studio in Stockholm. †is recording has since been made freely available on CDs distributed from galleries where the film was screened or can be downloaded, free of charge from the internet (www. makeithappen.org/johannabilling.html). †us, the evangelical nature of the project is redoubled. In the context that Billing sets the song, looking at wider Project for a Revolution, video still, 2000 society rather than at a dysfunctional relationship between leaves. †e film loops and we see the photocopier again. †ere two people, Erickson’s own story is particularly poignant. is no music or dialogue, just ambient sound. Billing has said Erickson was a leading figure in California’s music scene of the of the work: “It was our parents’ generation who brought the late nineteen-sixties, as lead singer of the 13th Floor Elevators. revolution. †ey took care of all that for us and we were told Today, Erickson suffers from an ongoing psychological illness that now everything had been done and it wasn’t something we as a result of his use of psychedelic drugs and from electric need be bothered with.” †e work describes something of the shock “therapy” (the latter inflicted upon him during his erosion of social democracy in Billing’s native Sweden. It is not incarceration for drug related offences). He is, in some ways, a film about apathetic youth, but should perhaps be seen as the somewhat of a martyr to the counter-cultural cause. opposite—a pacifistic, silent protest against the ultimate failure of the Modern world. Many artists explore similar themes by scrutinizing design icons and art histories. Billing has explored this territory with a number of works involving music. You Don’t Love Me Yet is an ongoing project by Billing that invites people to reinterpret the song of the same name written by Roky Erickson in 1984. Erickson’s song is one of unrequited love, but is unusually optimistic, ending:

Magical World, production still, 2005 ‘ I just won’t forget because you don’t love me yet.’ A more recent work by Billing adopts another neglected †e message is not, as we might expect in such songs, that song: Sidney Barnes’s “Magical World.” Barnes, describes the protagonist will “get over it,” but instead, that the object himself on his own website as a singer, songwriter, producer, of his affection will eventually capitulate. In October 2002, and sculptor. In forty years, Barnes has worked with Alice Billing invited musicians to perform covers of the song at a Cooper, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Parliament/Funkadelic, live event in Stockholm. †e participants were encouraged Iggy Pop, †e Rolling Stones, Kenny Rogers, †e Supremes, to be themselves within this collective event and collectivity †e Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Led Zeppelin, among in what has been described as “a tragic-comic, manic litany others. Barnes is one of those characters in popular culture who about the social demands that weigh heavily on people.” From transcends the narrow brackets of genre. “Magical World” was Stockholm, similar events have taken place in, amongst other first released as a double A sided single (together with a track cities, San Sebastián, London, Helsinki, Chicago, Timisoara, called “Aladdin”) in 1968, performed by his band, the Rotary 96

Connection, with Minnie Riperton on lead vocals. †is obscure slice of self-conscious psychedelic soul was resurrected by Billing in 2005 in a music class in Zagreb, Croatia. Billing’s six-minute film opens with views of a dilapidated cultural center in the Dubrava district. Panels of marble cladding have fallen away in places to reveal a rough concrete superstructure. Inside the building, the camera captures ripped vinyl upholstery and a kitsch clock, its swinging pendulums taking the form of a ballerina’s legs. A group of young children and teenagers are assembled in a large room with a polished parquet floor where they perform a slightly subdued version of Barnes’s song accompanied by a piano, guitars, and a flute:

‘ Why d’you want to wake me from such a beautiful dream, can’t you see that I am sleeping… I live in a magical world…’

Clearly sung in a language that the children barely understand, the song has a strange, plaintive quality that operates as a metaphor for the awkward translation of Eastern block socialism into a Western free market economy. However, by engaging children born after the collapse of the Yugoslavian Federation, and the resulting wars, there is a sense of optimism long lost from the surrounding architecture. †e music industry has long subsumed all emotive language so that every heightened personal experience we have, happy or sad, is invaded by some terrible tune. Both collectively and as individuals, music shapes our recollections of the past and inspires our futures. Recorded music is thus, as dangerous as it is positive. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1964: “†e phonograph is an extension and amplification of the voice that may well have diminished individual vocal activity.” For all the people empowered by music, many are silenced—their personal thoughts numbed or drowned out. Johanna Billing’s works recognize both the constraints and strengths of this aspect of popular music. Her work aspires, perhaps, to reassert the traditional values of music (largely lost after the establishment of the recording industry) when music was a real and constructive means of individual self-expression, leading to collective understanding. 97

Magical World, production still, 2005 98 99 100 101

(previous) Magical World, production still, 2005

Magical World, production still, 2005 102 103 Waiting for Billing

Maria Lind

In Johanna Billing’s short looped films, speech is far removed from a narrative trajectory. Instead, her narration flow is primarily constructed from quietly seductive images and music. †ere are, however, some words including lyrics. They have a decisive role in building atmospheres. Shortened phrases really can emphasize life-changing messages. It is her deployment of these techniques in relation to the groups of young and stylish (but still everyday) people on screen that determine whether the work succeeds or fails. †ey obviously have a communal task at hand. †e songs that Johanna Billing selects have a specific nostalgia—music that has accumulated a patina through time in relation to the artist’s own childhood and teenage years. †ey tend towards morose romanticism. †is is one of her specializations, and it lends an emotional charge to the films, especially in terms of the evocation of indecision and melancholy. †is atmosphere is unmistakable for those of us who grew up in Scandinavia in the nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties. It creates an atmosphere reminiscent of situations experienced at kindergarten, playtime, school, summer camp, in youth centers, community music schools, or sports clubs. All these ‘institutions’ were products of the social welfare state. Today, they only exist in partial form, and when they do, they are often fee-paying activities. Deep-seated intrigue is missing in these films even if they are loosely bound to “young people doing things together.” †ey are about group activities that shape the individual and vice versa. Even if the group is emphasized, the individual is used as a mirror again and again, their faces captured in close- ups like female leads in the melodramas of nineteen-thirties' cinema. But mostly, the films involve groups of young or younger people that unite in a common, sometimes puzzling activity. Is it a waiting room for an audition we are looking at? A relaxation exercise? Perhaps a swimming lesson or boot camp by the sea? †e participants don’t seem to have initiated their own pursuits, but instead, they seem to enact a task decided Magical World, production still, 2005 by someone else that carried out together. †ey engage in 104 105

some kind of community that seemingly enjoys collaboration. However, this is not collective action—as this would imply group decision-making, culminating in a communally performed task. Who comes out on top, the individual or the group? Hard to say, it is probably a bit of both. Usually, somebody breaks free from the group dynamic to go off on their own. Rather than engage in a lively debate, those left behind seem to appreciate their mutual if quiet understanding. †ey wait, hesitate, move or learn something entirely new. Each time something is about to happen, it doesn’t. Nothing is the way we supposed it to be. †ere is no real resolution and the films just continue to loop.

Project for a Revolution, production stills, 2000

(overleaf) Project for a Revolution, production still, 2000 106 107 108 109

with these object-words, she tries out different combinations, Some †oughts on Billing, juxtapositions, and rhythms. Billing works with people but she never psychoanalyzes her protagonists. As a result, Stein, and Repetition the viewer never gets to know them, and they too become object-like. Billing and Stein both make visible an inter- Malin Ståhl object relation—it is as though they are saying, “look what happens if this is placed next to that, or that.” †e aesthetic “ Play, play everyday, play and play and play away, and then play of such arrangements is both beautiful and rhythmic. In both the play you played today, the play you play every day, play it instances, the constellations could almost be sung. and play it. Play it and remember it and ask to play it. Play it, However, the songs would be very different. Stein’s song and play it and play away. Certainly everyone wants you to play, would be happy and humorous because she uses repetition in everyone wants you to play away, to play every day, to play and her poetry to celebrate life and the present moment. For Stein, play to play the play you play every day, to play and remember repetition is a device that can be used to reveal difference; it and ask to play it and play it and to play away and to play repetition keeps you in present time and difference makes every day …” Gertrude Stein you feel alive. Billing’s films, on the other hand, sing a more uncertain melody as they convey an almost claustrophobic ertrude Stein, the queen of repetition, is perhaps best G experience of repetition. In both Missing out and Project for known for her line a rose is a rose is a rose. Although time, space, a Revolution, the calmness and beauty encountered in the and medium keep the work by Johanna Billing and Gertrude composition is disturbed by a young man who tries to break Stein apart, a bringing together of the two is not as farfetched free from the uniformity of the rest of the group. †is young as it might at first sight appear. Although Stein was a writer, she man stops the viewer from sinking into a purely aesthetic is known to have likened her prose to film. Stein said in How contemplation of the film, he knows of something else, he longs Writing is Written that her repetitive and minutely differentiated for a different existence, and this realization fills the viewer prose is similar to the almost identical pictures that one with anxiety. †e anxiety grows stronger as each attempt to encounters on a rolling strip of film. break free results in his return to uniformity, this action or When speaking of repetition, in terms of Billing’s films, non-action gets repeated through the loop, like a wave that one speaks of several different kinds of repetition. †e first rages on the surface of the sea, only to break at the shore and and most obvious kind lies within the formal aspect of the timidly sink back into the calm movement of the sea, again and work. Since the making of Project for a Revolution in 2000, many again and again. of Billing’s films have been made as loops—with no beginning and end. By avoiding telling a linear story both Billing and Stein keep their viewers/readers in a present time. †e loop or the repetition allows the film and the poem to remain open and unfinished; the viewer/reader has to imagine his or her story line. Project for a Revolution and Missing out are perhaps the two works that are most structurally similar to some of Stein’s poems. Both “loops” consist of a number of carefully chosen compositions of people, each frame separated from the next through a series of cuts. Stein worked with words, but she used the words in such a way that they ceased to symbolize; Missing out, video stills, 2001 the words became object-like. In her texts, Stein plays around 110 111

Missing out, video stills, 2001

(right) Project for a Revolution, photo, 2000

112 113

the ladder. Another case in point is Magic & Loss, the subjects Getting †ere of which, laden with the contents of someone’s apartment, climb steep Dutch steps to clear out all of his or her possessions. Chen Tamir †e rhythm of their climbing keeps in check with the tempo of methodic, silent packing. And You Don’t Love Me Yet opens with ike M.C. Escher’s drawings, Billing’s works loop L a man proceeding up a steep escalator, presumably heading incessantly. †ey have no beginnings or ends, only twists and to the recording studio, where he joins others in singing a coils. And like the famous architectural contortionist, Billing song. Since the video loops perfectly, however, viewers see his tends to use staircases as both structural and symbolic elements ascent not necessarily at the beginning, but at various points in her works. throughout their experience of the piece. †e motif of stairs is a rich one. Traditionally signifiers All of Billing’s videos include shots of people en route of a higher plane, when ascending, or, a lower plane, when to the works’ main settings. †ey often show the protagonists descending, steps are the symbols of mountable hierarchy. driving, walking, or biking over to where a strange, collective †ey are two-way conduits, going both up and down. yet somewhat private action is to unfold. †e stairs in these Staircases themselves, though, are liminal zones, transitory works are not only structural lubricants or conduits for spaces. Billing’s use of stairs aids in creating a narrative loop action, but also dividers; they separate a personal state from that operates in the same way Escher used stairs in his drawings a more public one and provide a distancing from street level. —to connect disparate sections and bind them into a seemingly Ultimately, the fine balance between these two functions narrative whole. becomes a cycle with no end, leaving viewers in a state of Project for a Revolution is the first video Billing made perpetual discontinuity and anticipation, forever climbing that employs the loop. Inspired by the Latin root of the word the same steps. “revolution,” revolutio, meaning “to turn around” or “roll back,” Billing looks at a generational shift. By mimicking the opening scene of Antonioni’s famous film Zabriskie Point of 1970, she highlights today’s apparent malaise amongst her contemporaries. In Project for a Revolution, a group of languishing Generation “Xers” has gathered. One young man that, at times, sits with the group is shown climbing and descending stairs. We never know if he has just arrived or has just left the group on the other floor of the building. By defying the paralysis, keeping his peers in a quiet purgatory, he literally reaches a different plane. It is a clear example of how Billing uses stairs to both connect and confuse the order of things. In many other silent works, Billing foregrounds an individual set apart from the rest—participating in, but somehow distinct from a cohesive group of young people lacking any hint of impetus to do something. For instance, in Where She Is at, a young woman perpetually mounts the ladder of a high diving board, only to languish at the top. By giving Where She Is at its title, Billing forces us to consider the question of where this young lady is, which, in effect, is nowhere: She is in limbo—not diving, but also not descending (clockwise from top left) Magic & Loss, video stills, 2005 (above) You Don’t Love Me Yet, video still, 2003 114 115

Editing Is Musical my films need to be shown in open rooms as the films show some kind of ongoing activity, you can enter whenever and stay Carole Bertinet as long as you like.” Editing is a discourse Editing is musical At first sight, Billing’s videos could be perceived as Sensual atmospheres are made by rhythm in the works. Project documentaries, not only because of their contents, but also by for a Revolution has no soundtrack. †e rhythm comes from her way of working. However, Billing is interested in moving mundane sounds: the photocopy machine, the street, the beyond the parameters of documentary editing, and is, footsteps on the stairs, and the moments of silence. Johanna therefore, reluctant to call her films documentaries. “It’s a lot Billing explains that she prefers “to edit in a rhythmical way, about constructing a set, allowing something to happen, but so it almost becomes a bit like music. Or, with its rhythm, the then accenting the atmosphere in the editing.” With her close- editing can trigger the same emotional effect the way music ups, she expresses “how to be both part of a group of people can, the way music is still almost superior in how it portrays and be an individual,” the paradox of being together and alone. atmospheres and feelings. †at is what I am interested in trying †is is particularly visible in Project for a Revolution, with short out in the editing process.” close-ups of faces, one individual in motion, no one looking at each other, no clearly defined common space… “In the editing I always make some kind of fiction… It can sometimes be true to say that it can be a documentary about the atmosphere that was in the actual room while we were filming… Sometimes though, there are always some parts that are a bit more staged and directed, and also a bit more narrative.” †is introduction of fictional elements creates an ambiguous feeling. Instead of adding external narratives to documentary material, she is “modeling” the material to turn it into a fiction. She then uses effects close to the jump cut or the “wrong cuts:” something between two cuts that you cannot see but feel—like opening a space but without even being able to say where it is. And this also concerns her definition of time and space units, defined by her method of editing.

Editing is a spatial and temporal construction In traditional editing, the space has to be as real as possible, even though different shots were not filmed in the same location. Project for a Revolution shows exactly the opposite: †ere is no common space between the protagonists. Editing clouds the issue, creating something frustrating and uncomfortable. Project for a Revolution, installation view, Dialectics of Hope, 1st †e choice of loop emphasizes a non-ending story. Moscow Biennale, Lenin Museum, Moscow, 2005 †is spatial aspect and temporal game in the works is linked to (overleaf) You Don’t Love Me Yet, production still, 2003 their presentation. “I prefer not to be in a cinema space. I think 116 117 118 119 120 121

reality.” As such, the work operates as an examination of social Everyday I Am Everyday behavior, especially in terms of group dynamics within a social whole held together by repetitive music, a ritualistic intervention. Séamus Kealy However, the strange distancing the work enforces from the viewer, and the insufficiency of the music, participants, and he music project and video projection You Don’t Love Me Yet T especially the lyrics, lament, and circumnavigate the expectations by Johanna Billing appropriates the 1984 song of the same title by of being happy and finding love. †e work offers no conclusion, American singer-songwriter Roky Erickson. Billing was listening but dispels some fantasies, remarks upon others, and begins from to this song on the radio as she was reading in the newspaper that the ordinary and everyday to create glimpses into profundity, Sweden has the greatest amount of single-dwelling homes in the madness, and imaginings of the future. world. Billing relates the impetus of this project to contemporary problems associated with the Swedish identity, such as isolation and the institutionalized nature of Swedish social democracy, where consensus tends to be privileged over dissension. All the participants in Billing’s video belong to her generation, a younger demographic that is often accused of indifference and apathy, in contrast to the previous generation that is often (self)-heroicized as active in transforming society during the nineteen-sixties. Billing focuses on this younger demographic, to employ these characteristics of indifference and apathy as cliché, yet as reality, as assessment, and yet, as a means of evoking emotive characteristics that often seem waning in the golem of contemporary youth. †e result is very direct—“warm”—as Billing calls it, especially in what she sees as its address to a non- gallery audience. †is raises a number of issues. Firstly, this exploration of emotion via a re-rendering of an almost forgotten pop song, while emphasizing repetition, becomes a whirl of affective obsession. †e experience of blank, young faces engaged with this mournful, catchy melody that repeats again and again, evokes a conundrum of contemporary subjectivity (or subjectivity in general) as an endless, empty spiral around key emotive terms, which are held upon desperately as a means of defining inter-relation and individual consciousness as it glimmers in the spotlight of a “thing called love.” †e rhapsody of this melody begins as melodrama, transforms into reflexive parody (the indestructible melody of the 1984 Band Aid tearjerker “Do †ey Know It’s Christmas”), then peaks as a nightmarish circular coil. Billing speaks to this in terms of artists and their competitive egos, particularly in terms of their desire to be loved (previous spread and this page) You Don’t Love Me Yet, (by seeking successful careers). She contrasts this by pulling production still, Atlantis Studio, 2003 together a “harmonious collective of individualists” as a “viable 122 123 †e Secret Cousin

Jonathan Lethem

M y connection to Johanna Billing’s You Don’t Love Me Yet is both slight and odd, but I’m pleased by it, nonetheless. In 2006, I finished a novel about a rock band, which bore the provisional title “Monster Eyes.” My publisher asked me for a different title (this happens to me often). Since the novel centered on issues of collaboration, plagiarism, and the reuse and recirculation of cultural materials, I decided to find a title which, in the healthy tradition of pop music, ‘didn’t belong to me.’ For many years— decades, actually—I’d loved two completely different songs with the same title: “You Don’t Love Me Yet” by †e Vulgar Boatmen, and “You Don’t Love Me Yet” by Roky Erickson. After I’d settled on this as my title, in this age of Google, it was easy to discover that I wasn’t the third artist, but the fourth (at least!) to use that phrase as the name of a project. I only know Johanna Billing’s project indirectly, by the evidence I’ve discovered on the internet, and so it would be tempting to suggest that I don’t love it yet. But I feel that I love it already. †e photographic clues and the stirring cover version of Roky Erickson’s song both make me feel that Johanna’s project is a kind of secret cousin to my novel. Certainly, both fetishize the way a popular song may be the act, not of some single “genius” author, but instead, arise from a kind of willfully amateurish collective. Both projects emphasize how collaboration can blur the difference between art and life. And both are rather warm and silly. †e simultaneous existence of the two artifacts ratifies, it seems to me, many of the themes of my book. I hope Johanna feels the same way.

You Don’t Love Me Yet, chords and lyrics by Roky Erickson (1984), production notes from the recording session, Atlantis Studio, 2003 124 125 126 127 Radio Days; Tour Diary

Johanna Billing, Helena Holmberg, Annie Fletcher, Tanja Elstgeest, and Frédérique Bergholtz

In her long term project You Don’t Love Me Yet, which has been touring to different international cities between 2002 and 2005, Johanna Billing invited musicians to play a live version of a song by Roky Erickson, according to their own interpretation. “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution” organized the Dutch part of the tour in 2005, which travelled from Utrecht to ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and finally, Leiden. In this project, Johanna Billing made herself as an artist almost invisible. Behind the scenes, though, she organized You Don’t Love Me Yet. Live event, Index — †e Swedish Contemporary the event as precisely as possible. For example, by choosing Art Foundation, Stockholm, 2002 a location, that normally, is not used as a music podium, or, proposing an afternoon to stage the event instead of an If I Can’t Dance… Why Johanna Billing chose this specific song: evening, she consciously tried to break through existing patterns of behavior in both the music and visual arts “I think I first heard the original version of the song in 2001. scene. As an artist, she facilitated a collective experience It is written and performed by the American singer songwriter where individuality expressed itself in the different artistic —and I guess you can say, icon—Roky Erickson in 1984. interpretations of the song, where the performing musicians Roky Erickson is perhaps most known for his work with the were invited to listen to each others’ presentations, and where psychedelic rock group 13th Floor Elevators in the nineteen- the audience was witness to the potential of repetition, as the sixties. He had a solo career later and released many songs, event offered a wide range of versions of this sole song text. though this specific one is not the most well known.” Each event had its specific line up of performances by rock bands, choirs, laptop musicians, professionals, amateurs or “I cannot remember if I liked it very much in particular in the impromptu get-togethers, mainly coming from the local scene. beginning, but it really got stuck in my head. I spent a lot All the concerts ended with the video screening of the studio of time wondering about it. I guess it puzzled me a bit. recording of You Don’t Love Me Yet, a work made by Johanna I was really curious to put together an almost manifesto type Billing, together with a group of Swedish musicians. of event. Coming together around something that was very On various occasions, Johanna Billing expressed her slippery and vague and ambiguous, I wanted to see if coming ideas and thoughts about the project as well as explaining together would help to pin down the core of the song, what it how this project came into being. †e following text is a was about, or could be about…” compilation of quotes extracted from an interview with Helena Holmberg in September 2003, published in the Swedish How the project originated: magazine Nifca Info. †e main part comes from a talk Johanna Billing presented on the occasion of the project Radio Days in “My main idea at the beginning of 2002 was to gather musicians De Appel in Amsterdam, broadcasted live on Saturday March and artists from many different groups to join in a studio for 30, 2005. †e after note stems from email correspondences in a recording of a version together. Index, the institution in April 2006 between Johanna Billing and the curators of Stockholm that had invited me to work on this project, did not 128 129

have very much money, so just to get some things started, I invited all these groups to come down to the basement of Index to perform one version of the song after another— twenty bands in a row from four in the afternoon till eight in the evening. It was not meant to be anything more than a kind of a starting point for something else. I never dared to think that this extremely simple set up could actually turn out to be something quite magical in the end, because while the concert was going on, and the song, after a while, started to repeat itself, it created an incredible atmosphere that I still cannot really describe.”

How the project proceeded:

“Okay, so the concert was a success! It could have ended there, but the reason why all the groups took part in the concert in the first place was because they were promised that they could do the big version in the studio later on. So I had to continue and already then I started to feel a bit manic. Should I really take this any further? But apparently it was just the beginning! So in June 2003, eight months after the first live event, we managed to get the funding and were able to enter the wonderful, prestigious old Atlantis studio in Stockholm where, for example, Abba made some of their first recordings. I got help from the amazingly talented musician and composer Ida Lundén to arrange the song with strings, horns, and choir

You Don’t Love Me Yet, production stills, Atlantis Studio, 2003 (right) †e musical arranger Ida Lundén 130 131

arrangements. †ese arrangements were made very flexible and were invented in the studio whilst people were playing. †is was because we could not control beforehand who would come and what instruments people would bring. I am still amazed that it sounds quite planned! †e version from the studio, where altogether forty five musicians took part, was put on CD, distributed and handed out for free during the tour. I also made a film from this recording session.”

“But what about this tour? How did it come about? It actually happened because of a major misunderstanding. In order to get funding for the filming and the recording in the studio, Mats Stjernstedt and Helena Holmberg of Index had contacted all these smaller art institutions around Sweden, asking them if they were willing to contribute to the project. And then we would screen the film and make exhibitions with them in all the different cities. Further, my idea was to have a local band or artist make one more contribution in every city. But many months into the process, I realized that I had totally misunderstood what Mats and Helena had told me: It turned out that all these smaller cities did not want to make anything less or smaller than the event we did in Stockholm, so they were all in for making the huge live event with many bands. I think at first I kind of panicked! We were talking about arranging a really big tour with live events in ten cities within only a couple of months. Luckily, it was too late for me to say anything and the whole tour thing was already starting to happen.”

Johanna’s ideas about the notion of the cover version:

“I had been thinking about the idea of making cover versions a lot and was interested in working with that. Personally, I really love cover versions and I have always envied musicians because they can work with them. When you do a cover version, you pay a tribute to something, in a loving way; you might even reveal your influences by doing that.”

“I guess another reason why I like the cover version is that it implicates that you have to step outside of yourself and focus You Don’t Love Me Yet, production stills, Atlantis Studio, 2003 on someone else, enter someone else’s world. You are making 132 133

something maybe not about yourself, or if it is a tribute, not even for yourself, but, to me, that does not make the result any less personal. On the contrary, I think when you work with coverversions you sometimes let your self go and experiment even more. And to let go of oneself, no matter if it is in a love relationship or in a collaboration, is, I think, what this project is about.”

“Working with cover versions as a format for this project has served a bit like a catalyst. In this case, you are invited to take part, not to play your own song, but another person’s song, and you might ask yourself for what and for whom? †ese questions and how you relate to them are very important ingredients in this project.”

“Related to the idea of the cover version, is this other important element within the initial concept, namely repetition. †e fact that You Don’t Love Me Yet is repeated time and time again, in different forms, is almost like an incantation. But this repetition cannot just be about doing something again. I hope everyone feels that it’s about extending the project and that the new versions work as additions and commentaries.”

About the encounter of different styles and communities:

“During these events, the set up worked almost like a trick —even though not deliberate—to get people to listen with equal concentration to different types of music. And that is something that has been so revealing for me working with this project. Since I normally arrange a lot of music concerts with the record label that I also work with, my experience is, often, that when it comes to music, people are very specific about their taste, and about what kind of music concerts they go to, not quite as open as people who are interested in art and visit art shows.”

“Many of the performers, no matter how established they are, said they had never been as nervous as in these specific concerts. I guess that is because there was this extremely intense listening experience. You sit down, it is totally You Don’t Love Me Yet, production still, Atlantis Studio, 2003 quiet, no beer drinking and talking, as is normal in other 134 135

concert situations. And, of course, you start to listen for the small things that are different in the songs. Or if you are a performer, you might even sit there and compare your own version to the others before going up to play and that is perhaps what made so many of performers so nervous.”

“†at it is possible to arrange a concert with the toughest hip hop guys playing together on the same stage with, for instance, classical guitar students, and that it can feel like a very natural thing, only because you have something else to focus on has been a really amazing experience.”

“I think it has helped a lot that the audiences were extremely mixed. †e mix of both the performers and the audience came, I guess, out of a very practical setup we tried to establish in all the cities we went to. In every city we wanted the local

You Don’t Love Me Yet, guitar sounds, live at Norrköping Konstsmuseum, 2003

(right) You Don’t Love Me Yet, play list, Frieze Art Fair, London, 2003

art institution to collaborate with a local music institution or venue. And, many times, this happened for the first time, often with a lot of skepticism and hesitation. Could this be something good? Nobody wanted to lose any of his or her integrity of course in the process. †ere was a fear sometimes that the music would not be taken seriously enough in the art museum context and vice versa. †e funniest thing that actually happened in many of the cities, was not that people came up afterwards and said how good it was but instead, they were often a bit surprised that it actually happened at all!” 136 137 About what this long-term project entails:

“For me it feels natural working with a project for a long time and it is exciting having so many components in a project and, at the same time, activating something so open and motley. †e collaboration between the organizers is also interesting, as they now make ‘cover’ versions of the first concert in their respective towns. Obviously, there’s a double emotion connected to it, but still that is what the project has been about since the start. I find it exciting—and quite right—that, in part, even I must relinquish control over the way I work with exhibitions and events. Of all the various parts of this project, I think that is the most exciting: trying to create a more flexible form for how things are shown while maintaining the content.”

How the project further developed:

“From the cosy candlelit concert in the old citizen’s house in Östersund, it was a totally different atmosphere setting up the event at the Frieze Art Fair in Regents Park in London in October 2003. When we were doing the soundcheck in the temporarily built lecture room that the concert was going to You Don’t Love Me Yet, Karl Holmqvist live at Frieze Art Fair, London, 2003 take place in, the directors of the fair got a call from the gallery “After the event at Frieze I think Mats, Helena, and I started booth next to us where the owner of the gallery was very to feel more confident and relaxed now that the project had upset and shouting that he could not hear what his client was been made in five cities: Stockholm, Eskilstuna, Norrköping, saying. So, it was all very different trying to fit something in Östersund, and London. It was all going great! We might even to a context where you feel like you make a big contrast just by have thought that this concept could never go wrong…” being there—even though this, of course, was an art project to begin with.” “But then a month later we went to Vara, a very small town in the middle of Sweden. †ere, the project was incorporated into a big cultural youth camp where young kids from the Baltic countries came to the concert house in Vara and took part in all kinds of cultural workshops for a week. And You Don’t Love Me Yet was one of the projects they were supposed to work on. What made the whole experience so different (and difficult), was that they were told to do these versions by their teacher, and they had no choice. I think it is very important for this project that it is about choice, and that you bring something with you in the process, the fear of what you might lose or the You Don’t Love Me Yet, live at Sjömanskyrkan, You Don’t Love Me Yet, live at Frieze Art Fair, Gävle, 2003 London, 2003 speculation of what you might win, or whatever other reason you might have for taking part. But still, it is up to you!” 138 139

“Next stop was outside of Sweden again: Helsinki, Finland. †ere, all my prejudices about the Finnish music scene were proven right when all the Finnish performers came to the soundcheck with their hands full of all kinds of electronic equipment: game boys, synthesizers, and homemade computers. †ere were not even enough electrical outlets in the end to set up everything and the concert was delayed for hours.”

“Coming closer to Roky Erickson, in March 2004, we went to the US, to Chicago, where the event was organized by Kristen VanDeventer, a music enthusiast working at Vedanta You Don’t Love Me Yet, †e Bitter Tears live at Gallery, with a lot of contacts to some of the finest musicians Vedanta Gallery, Chicago, 2004 in Chicago. When doing the events in smaller cities around Sweden, many of the participating bands had not heard of “†e Chicago event was supposed to be the final stop ever. Roky Erickson before. Still, they took part. Some knew of my For many, also very practical reasons, I could not make any record label perhaps as some kind of security, and some took new work and started to feel a bit trapped. So, for the next part for other reasons, for the song itself. But one nice thing couple of months no events happened and we turned new with the Chicago event was that this time nobody knew who proposals down. In Timisoara, in Romania though, there was I was. Instead, everybody knew of Roky Erickson, so the a remix version being made in October 2004 by the Romanian event there got to be a lot about a tribute concert to Roky group Makunochi Bento. And while I was in Romania Erickson, which was very beautiful and a bit different from listening to their version, I got a call from Michael Stanley who the previous events.” is working in Milton Keynes, a city outside of London, asking if we could do it again. Having the song in my head again, I could not say “no.” So in March 2005, there was another concert held in Middletown Hall, the shopping mall of Milton Keynes, a new city, only 35 years old, that you could say basically centers around its shopping mall.”

“Sitting on the floor there in the middle of the shopping mall, for me, the event suddenly got to be a bit strange, because right in the middle of the performances, all of a sudden, this memory popped into my head from when I was a teenager in the small town of Jönköping and was singing in a religious choir, mostly because there was nothing else to do in your (above) You Don’t Love Me Yet, †e Lay All Over Its; spare time. Anyway, suddenly I saw myself very clearly on this Jason Ajemian and Nori Tanaka live at Vedanta Gallery, choir trip up to Stockholm and how we were standing in the Chicago, 2004 middle of a big shopping center in the south of Stockholm, (right) You Don’t Love Me Yet, Rebecca Gates live at singing for people passing by. So, to be doing this kind of event Vedanta Gallery, Chicago, 2004 in a public place like this, suddenly freaked me out! So, maybe for me it all comes down to this thing again: the choice you also have as an audience member to take part in this or not.” 140 141

“It is funny to sit here and talk about this in Amsterdam because, as I speak, the plans for setting up three new You Don’t Love Me Yet concerts here in the Netherlands are being made at this very moment and they will happen in Utrecht, on May 19, at Festival a/d Werf, then in August at †eaterfestival Boulevard in Den Bosch and finally, at De Veenfabriek in Leiden in November later this year. So for all you listeners in Holland, consider this an open call, if you want to join this project and make a cover version in any of these cities, contact Annie Fletcher, Frédérique Bergholtz, and Tanja Elstgeest who are organizing these events together.”

Epilogue:

“From talking to doing, and now, finally sitting here writing about it. We did make the three events in the Netherlands as I said. It went really well. In fact it went so well, the first time in May at Festival a/d Werf in Utrecht, that I almost felt a bit weird about it. Where did all the nervous tension go? †e anxious and subdued atmosphere, where you could sense the mixed feelings of reluctance and enthusiasm and the worries in between the songs, about what was going to happen next, was completely gone! †e event in Utrecht was enjoyable and easygoing: It was an atmosphere allowing people to clap their hands, sing along, and even make jokes and laugh! I was amazed. I later realized that this was perhaps just my first encounter with the easy and relaxed Dutch way of socializing, doing things together with absolutely no inherent

You Don’t Love Me Yet, Gigant, live at Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, 2005 (left) You Don’t Love Me Yet, play list, Veenfabriek, Leiden, 2005 142 143

You Don’t Love Me Yet, De Rotte Herders, live at Veenfabriek, Leiden, 2005 You Don’t Love Me Yet, Love Aktion Machine, live at Veenfabriek, Leiden, 2005 144 145

struggle or problem, collaborating for the fun of it! Just like that! It was great, but weird to feel that maybe the functions I was aiming for the project to have, did not really apply here. I started to think that there was maybe not really the same need for doing the project in Holland. But then on a rainy afternoon in August, when the summery festival spirit all of a sudden seemed very far away, I did get back to the more harsh moods together with the smaller and more hesitating crowd on the second floor of the foyer of †eater aan de Parade in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. †e atmosphere gradually evolved though, each time a song was performed. And amazingly in the end, people just did not want to stop playing: encores, again and again. And finally on the November 27, 2005, what was to be announced as the final stop ever of the You Don’t Love Me Yet tour, took place in Leiden. It was the most massive set up so far, with around twenty seven bands performing during a couple of extremely cold hours in the freezing Veenfabriek, that was not yet fully renovated. Before the bands started You Don’t Love Me Yet, Jerry Can, live at Veenfabriek, Leiden, 2005 to perform, in my introductory speech, I was stressing the uniqueness of the event, talking about how final it was. At the same time, I felt kind of stupid, standing there and saying all this, though knowing that this whole Dutch tour, for example, never even should have happened, because the stop before, the one in Milton Keynes—no actually, the one in Chicago, or even the one in Ystad was the real final stop originally…! And this is something I have found so striking about the project; to realize eventually, that maybe I just cannot stop it. It is not longer my project and, of course, not my song. Anybody can come along and do it, and maybe do it even better. And that was also one of the more interesting conversations we had when talking about whether the You Don’t Love Me Yet project could get this ‘other chance’ again, and be turned into a Dutch tour, after the final stop in Milton Keynes last year. We started talking about the differences in making performance and art projects in the art world compared to the theater world, or the music scene. A play, a concert, or a tour, just gets better the more it is interpreted, played, or seen, the more it travels and the more people get the chance to get involved, all over the world. Also, in the art You Don’t Love Me Yet, Devens & Ramses, live at Veenfabriek, Leiden, 2005 world, there is sometimes a feeling that it is okay to repeat 146 147

some things, in fact, that it is good! But just not too many times, then the project can face a risk of loosing its credibility or value, its uniqueness, perhaps as an “art object / project.” One of the other more interesting parts of working with this project in the “If I Can’t Dance…” frame was the notion of repetition. To take an already repeating project and repeat it three times within itself almost, and within such a small area, and on top of that, within only a couple of months, turned out to be very fascinating and challenging. And I am not only also so happy to have the same performers coming again and again to the different cities in the Netherlands, like the fabulous fishermen choir De Rotte Herders, who, the second time around, took their version even further and transformed themselves and the song from a traditional folk tune sung in a specific Den Bosch’ dialect, to the coolest rap version (still in Dutch though!), but for me, it has also been great to have the opportunity to work with the same fantastic group of people, with, for example, the concert arranger Joris Tideman and his great way of finding and working with the musicians, not only for one event, as in the other cities, but again and again, and to have the possibility to not only look at things as a one of a kind experiment, but to have the chance to redo things, and work on them, taking the bad experiences into consideration and making them better the next time. So, now that it is over, and especially since the last event was so nice, I cannot stop thinking of the somewhat vague but intriguing suggestion I heard the other day, which was that somebody told me to “just think about the possibilities” of perhaps setting up a You Don’t Love Me Yet concert in San Francisco and imagine “how many great musicians there are over there. Just one more time….”

PS: †e event in San Francisco took place in November 2006 and in February 2007 another concert with Spanish musicians covering You Don’t Love Me Yet was hosted by Madrid Abierto in Madrid

(right) You Don’t Love Me Yet, play list, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, 2007

(overleaf) You Don’t Love Me Yet, Hot Drop, live at Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, 2007 148 149 150 151 You Make Me Digress

Åbäke

On a Saturday in 2003, we are standing in front of Johanna but she isn’t alone. With her are what seems like millions of people—more likely fifty—who came to listen to covers of “You Don’t Love Me Yet”, one of which is ours. On this little stage at the Frieze Art Fair, we think of the discussions with Johanna which led us to do this. We are no singers nor musicians. Our smiles are forced and it lasts forever. Right then, we all wish to be somewhere else, yet there is the feeling that Johanna had made us do something which we wouldn’t have thought of. We are in pain but strangely grateful. †ank you J.

On a Tuesday in 2004, we receive a mixed-CD from Johanna. It contained the following songs: 1. Open Field 2. Tropical Iceland 3. Broken Joystick 4. †e Coocoo Bird. 5 Dear. Dad 6 I. Want 7 Surprise Me 8. All Good Naysayers, Break up! or Forever 9. Run into Flowers 10. Our Anniversary 11. Portrait Song 12. Hey, Who Really Cares 13. Don’t Let Me Down 14. Terrible Angels 15. Old Pal of My Heart 16. It’s a Party 17. All Shook Up 18. Baby I Love You 19. Honey Moon Suite 20. Panis et Circences 21. Baby Jane 22. Das Wort 23. Diet 24. Eigentlich Glücklich 25. Silverdagger 26. Go and Tell Your Father 27. Classic Unknown 28. †e Drum 29. Horses 30. Rocketship 31. Maria Bethania 32. St Elmos Fire 33. It’s Rough 34. Back Street Luve 35. Joppa Road 36. On My Mind 37. Karl Blau 38. Memo to My Son 39. Hotcha Girls 40. Help the Band 41. Worry Worry 42. Up in the North 43. Ukulele Speghetti 44. Night Nurse 45. Disco D’oro 46. Helicopter 47. Such Great Heights 48. Up With People 49. I Don’t Feel too Steady on My Feet 50. Track of the Cat 51. Sinnerman. †is list sounds like one of her exhibitions.

On a Saturday of September 2005, we are in a large room with a hundred other people. Most of us are singing: “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, dear Johanna.” She blushes but it is fun. Most people there know (of) her, but have not come to Iaspis Studios in Stockholm for the yearly

Look out!, production still, Gainsborough Studios, London, 2003 152 153

celebration. †is is no birthday party, but a rather serious seminar on collaborative practices organized by Lars Nilsson, Maria Lind, and Johanna Billing. We have been invited to take part and couldn’t resist the coincidence of the date. After all, Johanna always seems to mix life and work.

On a Tuesday in 2003, Johanna has a show in East London where we live (Studio Works). †e place is new and it is hard to think that the whole area is changing faster than perhaps it should. Surely, the news of a dismembered body found in a suitcase is horrible, and luxury flats are to be preferred to any nicknames such as “the murder mile.” †at being said, her film is about and shown in the ground floor of an all new luxury flat complex. Just outside is the Buddha-like metal sculpture of Alfred Hitchcock’s head. It is enormous and somehow commemorates the site of Gainsborough Studios. †e building kept the name and erected an effigy of its most famous director. †e same year in the same area, we worked with Apolonija Sustersic (Community Research Center), then Ella Gibbs and Amy Plant (Laburnum Pilot). †is is not the place for details, but they all have something in common with Johanna’s work. Please consider this as a hyperlink.

On a Sunday in 2007, we do nothing the whole day, together. On a †ursday in 2005, we take Johanna Billing, the founder of the music label Make It Happen and Karl-Jonas Winquist, a.k.a. Blood Music (on Make It Happen) to Epping Forest in London to show them the site where we built a wooden-wicker man for Blood Music’s artwork. Most of the wooden humanoid is still there and despite the cold, we manage to have a picnic. Between dishes, Johanna spontaneously grabs a camera and starts filming a trailer for the Blood Music album (she is working).

Revisiting Epping Forest, the making of “Sing a Song Fighter!”, 2005 154 155 More Text about Songs and Buildings

Magnus Haglund

What is to be heard and what is to be seen, in comparison to what is not to be heard and what is not to be seen? Maybe we ought to be a bit more careful in deciding what it is that makes a piece of art valid and mysterious? †e curious combination of controlled action and hidden romantic feeling in Johanna Billing’s works has as much to do with the poetry of absence as with ongoing social rituals. †ere is a musicality to be found in the silent videos Project for a Revolution (2000) and Magic & Loss (2005). No one says anything, nothing is explained, but inside the reluctant and introspective silence, a particular kind of melody can be heard. It is the music of going up the stairs, moving a leg while leaning against a radiator, carefully wrapping porcelain in protecting paper, the melodies of non-spectacular but significant events. Listen carefully, prick up your ears, and these sweet and precise sounds will come to you. It is a bit like reading a letter from a close friend; you know the nuances of particular words, the subterranean dreams connected with certain moments, the sorrows that have been shared. You have to listen to these sounds as a friend. †en you will recognize the beauty of them, how precious they are. Why call a film, however, about the removal of an absent person’s furniture from an old apartment in Amsterdam, Magic & Loss? What has it to do with the famous Lou Reed album of 1992, made in honor of two close friends that had recently died? †e film is secretive about its codes and meanings, and part of the quality is to be found in the interpretative freedom it leaves for the viewer. But the almost ritual handling of the material, with a deep and mysterious silence ringing through the activities, turns the increasingly empty flat into a metaphysical state of mind, as if the people participating were reading Buddhist sutras or the Kaddish to themselves. In the peculiar silence, the building itself starts to resonate and becomes a big vessel or sound-tank. You enter Magic & Loss, production still, 2005 the house built by the partnership of Houdini and Joseph 156 157

Cornell, later on, changed and reconfigured by Gordon Matta-Clark. You walk up the stairs, experience the strange escapism of the rooms, and maybe you even fall through the illusionary trapdoors.

Magic & Loss, production stills, 2005 158 159

Magic & Loss, production still, 2005

(right) Magic & Loss, production notes, 2005 160 161

Magic & Loss, production still, 2005

(left) Magic & Loss, production notes, 2005 162 163

Magic & Loss, production still, 2005

(left) Magic & Loss, production notes, 2005

(overleaf) Magic & Loss, production still, 2005 164 165 166 167 Regarding Us

Cecilia Canziani

In my parents’ house, there was a reproduction of a famous painting in which a girl with braids and blue eyes was standing in front of a dark background. Despite the fact that the girl was much older than I was, and that my hair was very short and I didn’t have braids until the age of four, it was my deepest conviction that the depicted person was me, and I couldn’t understand why nobody could see it. †is story came into my mind while I was looking at another girl with braids and blue eyes on whose delicate features the camera in Johanna Billing’s video Magical World rests. What stays in my memory in relation to her works are the people she depicts in the act of singing, or breathing in unison, and performing in front of the camera the ritual of getting together. †ere are a series of portraits of individuals, at the same time, naturally acting themselves and being staged, and who contribute with their experiences, their bodies, and the expression of their faces to the result of the project. Discussing the portrait, Jean Luc Nancy uses the verb regarder—it looks at us—regards us. On the threshold between the picture plane and the real, they seem to talk to us, to invite us in. While exploring the tensions between the demands of society and the needs, habits, and desires of the individual, Billing’s characters remind us that a group is not an abstraction, but a multitude of singularities. †e camera in her videos singles out individuals she invites to partake in an action—there is never an a priori collectivity: Participation, Johanna teaches us, cannot be imposed, but exists when people gather together to share an activity. Such is, for Hanna Arendt, the space of the political, a place that exists as an in between, a fleeting potential “we,” that needs to be created over and over again. In Billing’s work, this notion exceeds the limits of the performance, and expands it in the space occupied by the spectator: †e people on the screen seduce us, and desiring to be part of the group that is taking form, we are transformed from viewers to potential participants. †e portrait of a person acts as catalyst: It fosters—as I felt almost too well as a child—identification, Magical World, the desire to be part of that scene that takes place if front of “Creativity Studios with Children” workshop, Galeria Posibila, Bucharest one’s eyes. (overleaf) Magical World, production still, 2005 168 169 170 171

Who’s Going to the past, that one cannot help but revisit one’s own memories from the period when the Center and many of its counterparts Finish It? were still believed to be “in the process of completion.” Today, we only hear about plans of turning the Dubrava Center Ivet Eurlin of What, How and for Whom / WHW into a shopping mall with (maybe even!) a multiplex cinema. †e ghost geography of so-called Eastern Europe is rushing Just as in any other city—one does not go to the suburbs to adapt to the ‘normal’ European standards of the West. of Zagreb unless one lives there, not without a very specific In Magical World, the loop of the video accents the feeling of reason, and Dubrava is no exception. Known as the city’s understatement, continuous repetition, and the erasure of most notoriously ‘uncultured’ suburb, supposedly full of boundaries between the beginning and the end, so that we are immigrants, mobsters, hard-core nationalists, and soccer fans, not quite sure whether the musicians that are accompanying this legendary area of “tough and rough boys” is not nearly the kids pack their instruments back into the car or take them as dangerous as this urban mythology would like to suggest. out. †e question that the video poses most strongly is about It is just far away from the recently spruced-up and touristy the future of the singing children. Is the erratic and confusing center. Johanna stumbled upon it by accident, while looking process of building over? Or is there sufficient collective for a thing one would least expect to find there—a children’s imagination (and enough clout) that can renegotiate the choir. †e Dubrava Cultural Center, where she found the choir, present circumstances and rethink the ways in which we are is a huge multi(dys)functional building, constructed during determined by seemingly unavoidable current geopolitical and socialist times, as one of the biggest of numerous cultural economical positions? centers, built in a line of public projects designed to foster the cultural ‘emancipation’ of workers in different city districts. However, being built during the economically volatile nineteen- seventies and nineteen-eighties, when on the one hand, the country was still experiencing economic growth, and on the other, IMF and World Bank loans (lavishly spent in previous decades on consumer goods and social peace) were becoming due, the building was never finished. Today, the building is overburdened with expectations that never became fulfilled, and its continual unfinished status perpetuates, and pinpoints, the feeling of uneasiness with the current state of affairs in the cultural policies of Croatia. Magical World was filmed in the Dubrava Cultural Center during one summer day in 2005, and the worn out surroundings of the center, combined with the sentimentality and sweetness of the tune sung by kids in patchy English, brings out the melancholy that surfaces in almost every frame, of pensive children’s faces, summer in Zagreb, and the deserted hallways of the Center. And yet, there is magical effect, as suggested by the title, which continues to linger long after, along with the

music and the lyrics of the song that one just can’t get out of Magical World, production still, 2005 one’s head. †e site of the video is so obviously dated, so out of 172 173 Sentimental Season

Mika Hannula

In the far left corner on the ground floor at the old tobacco factory site of this year’s biennial (2005), we find something strange, something that somehow does not fit in. We are confronted with a solemn and beautiful video loop focusing on a group of children practicing and playing a very particular song. What we see is something most of us deliberately wish to avoid and not pay attention to. It is a sentimental season during which, basically, everyone is, all of a sudden, looking for a handkerchief. We have a surprised audience with slightly wet eyes and certainly a warm heart. But hold on? What is going on? Did I say a children’s music group? It is a set up of, “oh, so lovely kids,” rehearsing an uplifting song in a cultural center that could be located anywhere and everywhere. We see their puzzled, but incredibly serious faces. We sense their excitement, the awkwardness of trying to perform in a language which is not theirs. We follow the movement of the camera, we adjust to the style of editing that borrows so nonchalantly from classic pop / rock videos. †e linear narrative is broken, but the wholeness of the event is framed and secured by the factual duration of the song. †ere is a beginning and an end—and the never-ending repetition of the loop. And yes, in between, you notice the process slowly building up, brought together with an almost caressing kind of editing that smoothly flows from one face to another, one significant detail to the next. Is this not a little too much? Is this not too close to something that, for good reason, is labeled “social pornography”? It this not too much like a product made for granddads and grandmas in the imaginary public sphere? With her filmMagical World, Johanna Billing has managed to create something of a fail-free heartbreaker, a real deal tearjerker. But contrary to our deep-seated cynical inclinations, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her style, her attitude, and the result: a film. On the contrary, it gives us a wonderful example of how contemporary art can steal back themes and moments that we thought were forever lost. Magical World, invite, 2005 174 175

†e crucial difference between Billing’s work, and the flood of sentimental images connected to children we have no choice but to witness, day in day out, is the following point: Whereas the mainstream images of children are mostly instrumentalized for commercial use, Billing’s piece is not a product. She is not desperately trying to sell us anything. She does not promote anything. She does not articulate a social issue or a political agenda. Her film is a work of art. As an art work, Magical World is not holy, it is not above us. It is not detached from our daily realities. It is “here and now.” It is here and now in a way that is simply amazing. It does not shout, it does not beg. It is a film that achieves a rare atmosphere of its own kind and make. It is unique in its means of having the courage to get closer and closer to the sentimental season it wants to address and cherish. I believe Magical World is a very brave work. It is an example of civil courage that goes against the tide of our times. It does not oppose commercialization of our life-worlds. However, neither does it passively just stand-by to be bought, sold, and recycled. Instead, Billing offers us an alternative. She shows us how it is, indeed, not only possible, but even preferable to deal actively with these major concepts and feelings that seem to be so cute and phony, but nevertheless, important. We need them back. We need these sensations and words for our use right here, right now. We need to have alternative ways of defining what is hope, seen both individually and collectively. We have to be able to provide alternative versions of love and hate, misery and pleasure, versions which are not flat, one-sided slogans, but entities characterized by inner tensions and loving conflicts. †e extra special effect of Billing’s film is obviously the song she chose to cover. With her choice, Billing is following, funnily enough, the steps of that rather famous director called Tarantino. Both of them re-activate songs from the past that deserve to be heard again and recognized. With Billing’s work, the original song was written by black American singer Sidney Barnes in 1968. A song that definitely deserves to be born again, a song that forces me to ask for help. It is a wish. Someone somewhere out there. Please, please Mr or Mrs postman. Does anyone have a copy to spare or borrow of the original version of Magical World? 176 177

“Magical World,” written by Sidney Barnes, 1968, transcribed onto sheet music by Ida Lundén 178 179

Perfect Pop Pleasures music that means the most to us is always also a consumer condition—is somehow never far from my thoughts. Jacob Wren Perhaps there is also something else about Billing’s Magical World. †e children who gather to sing are not Earlier this year, I interviewed the Finnish writer and curator consumers of this music. †ey are participants. Before the Mika Hannula. In an unpublished section of that interview, invention of recordings, people would gather and sing. †e fact speaking of the things, which continue to inspire and give that we no longer sing together, that such an idea would seem energy, Mika recalls buying the vinyl re-issue of the classic quaint and old-fashioned to many of us (especially in the art Curtis Mayfield album Curtis: “If I need a helping hand in world), is yet another symptom of our endlessly refined and lifting the spirits, this is where I look. †is is my context. surprisingly pleasurable isolation. It is this isolation I feel when †is is my discourse. And yes, of course, there is a sentimental I am searching for some new record, the isolation from which I season, very much so. Opening the foldout album cover, I find would not have escaped when I finally track down that Rotary a huge picture inside of Curtis having, assumedly, his daughter, Connection re-issue. And yet, the video Magical World suggests around three to four years old, sitting on his shoulders, a brief moment in which things might be otherwise. holding her hands around his chin. And what does this make me feel? Not quite real, but it makes me feel alive, connected ‡ Cf. from Mika Hannula, †e Politics of Small Gestures: Chances and inspired.” and Challenges for Contemporary Art, Istanbul, 2006 Sentimental Season‡ is also the title of Mika’s text on Johanna Billing’s video Magical World, a video I recently saw for the first time in Canada. It was a video that immediately drew me in and, in retrospect, I realize the degree to which the song pulled me into the work. At the time, it didn’t occur to me to investigate further, but I was to learn more, anyway, since Mika’s text ends with him tracking down the CD re-issue of the original 1968 version by Rotary Connection. It is odd that I didn’t attempt to search out the song myself since these moments of tracking down records, obscure records both old and new, are so familiar and powerful for me. I am almost embarrassed to think about how much time I spend chasing after music and what a central role such songs play in my daily life. However, when Mika speaks of feeling “alive, connected and inspired,” for me, it is only one side of the story. Every time I buy a new record, the purchase is accompanied by a slight feeling of guilt, a strange sort of hangover, as though Adorno was peering over my shoulder and reminding me that my love of music, which does, in fact, give me a great deal of pleasure, also contributes to the perpetuation of our society’s continuing barbaric condition, to our lack of autonomy in the face of products and systems in which we have little or no say. †e connection between our pure pop pleasures and the sins Magical World, production still, 2005 of corporate advertising culture—how our connection to the 180 181 Pass the Glue

Volker Zander

Music can be adhesive. Songs, especially, can be sticky— and, in particular, certain parts of songs. †ey can glue onto you, play repeatedly in your mind, and become inner soundtracks that guide you through life. I first saw a small selection of Johanna Billing’s film works at Basis art space in Frankfurt am Main in October 2006. †e videos You Don’t Love Me Yet and Magical World were the most prominent works within the exhibition, simply because they featured songs in their soundtracks, following you throughout the two-story deep cellar. What I took home, above all, from this exhibition was music spinning in my head. Hook lines and melody fragments of both songs started to trigger strong effects in my daily routines. My use of “yets”—the magical word that adds, to negation, the twist of hope—increased exponentially. And this Motown-ish Supremes-like outcry in the verse of Magical World (when a boy about ten years old sings “So, Why…”) became my inner ring tone for the stepping-stones in daily life (“…don’t Johanna Billing Original Soundtracks, Magical World / You Don’t Love Me Yet, 12” vinyl, Apparent Extent, 2007 you leave me alone?”). †is was the moment when the idea appeared to release Johanna Billing’s music on a record. I wrote her, and asked, and the answer was “yes.” She had thought about this herself. She wrote back, curious to find out what would happen to the music if it was extracted from the video. In conversation, Johanna emphasizes her fascination of cover songs. You Don’t Love Me Yet (originally by Roky Erickson from 1984) and “Magical World” (written by Sidney Barnes for the Rotary Connection in 1968) had—as she puts it—“worked” on her “for a long time.” It seems to me these sticky pieces “worked” until the moment when a conceptual cinematic idea appeared, strong enough for her to pass on the glue. 182 183

Another Album, production stills, 2006 184 185 †e Lights Go out, the Moon Wanes

Anne Tallentire

Some people are sitting on a bench watching the large screen, placed opposite, at a diagonal, in the gallery—Hollybush Gardens, London, January 2007. †ere is an animated, yet relaxed atmosphere. †e crowd is milling around watching and talking as is customary at an exhibition opening. †e conventions of one group activity are engaged around the depiction of another. At the beginning of the film, people arrive in fairly small boats. †e sun is just beginning to go down. Seagulls squawk and hover over the narrow stretch of water between the shore and islands beyond. A young man approaches a gate. He passes under a vine and walks toward a summer house where his friends are milling about, preparing for the evening, lighting a barbecue, strumming guitars, carrying a table from the veranda to the garden. †ey bring chairs, bottles of wine, food, light candles and, eventually, begin to sit down to eat. A strong breeze is blowing through striped towels hanging on a line from the trees above. †e garden is saturated with color against a deep blue sky. A brown dog mooches. Soon, most have gathered at the table, and the singing begins. As convention has it, turns are taken leading the songs. First verses and chorus lines are sung with confidence whilst there is also a struggle here and there to recall a line or a chord before breaking into a hum and fading away. †e presence of a microphone, lights, and the camera make clear that the event has been staged. However, the participants act normally. †ere is constant, yet unobtrusive movement to and from the table, back to the house, or to other parts of the garden. †e guitar is passed around and, in parallel, the camera constantly shifts view, moving between and around the tables, the house and the trees framing moments of both engagement and disengagement and making vivid a process of collective memory, its agency and affect. Documentary, home movie, or Another Album, production still, 2006 travelogue genres that may be momentarily brought to mind 186 187

are undermined through the construction of a pragmatic visual language that rigorously and eloquently resists one overbearing singular narrative. †e acoustic improvised evocations of another time and place (Novi Val (New Wave) from ex-Yugoslavia of the nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties) inevitably, through the course of the evening, find moments of discordance and harmony. I begin to imagine I know some of the tunes remembered from a bus journey in 1978, but, unable to decipher the words, I find identification is, in the end, often stronger with those who do not know the words or those who opt out of a song. Twenty-seven songs later concerning love and life, the friends retreat back to the house still singing. †e lights go out, the moon wanes, the dog settles, and the viewer is left as if it were outside to watch the dawn, listen, and reflect upon how, through this work, we have become implicated in questions concerning who we become and how we live in relation to each other.

Another Album, video stills, 2006

(right) Another Album, production still, 2006 Another Album, production still, 2006 188 189

Another Album, production still, 2006

(overleaf) Another Album, installation view, ”Stages,” l’Espai Montcada, La Caixa Forum, Barcelona, 2007 190 191 192 A Possible Trilogy

Jelena Vesie

A few weeks ago, Johanna Billing came for a dinner at my lovely attic at the Arthotel in Stockholm (of course, very temporarily mine, but I managed to give it an ambience that felt like home). After some glasses of wine and a chain of small chats about this and that in Stockholm and Belgrade, about music, risotto and soup, art, film, and people we know, the wine-nostalgia really hit me, and I started to tell her how much I love her Magical World. It was past three o’clock in the morning. A bit drowsy, Johanna said “Cheers” once again, and took four LPs from a project I had not seen from her large bag. She gave me the vinyls to deliver to friends in Belgrade, and a DVD with a film called Another Album. “Watch it, and tell me what you think,” she said. It was already bright daylight, as if it were 9 am. I walked her downstairs where she jumped on her bicycle. Ten days later, it was raining incessantly in Stockholm. I stayed on the sofa all day, reading the Russian magazine Chto delat (What is to be done) and watching Another Album a few times between several snoozes. What a luxurious day! In the recognizable manner of Johanna Billing, but always somehow different and told all over again, this video shows a group of young people in slow and dispersed action. †e story in the foreground tells of everyday situations and small daily actions, but in the background, it reconstructs some significant times of the past, times that those young people cannot remember, though they try, trapped in some painful and uneasy space between memory and oblivion. †is is an entourage of young people from Zagreb, who have come on holiday to a small and isolated island somewhere on the Croatian coast. Arriving by boat on the beach, they set up house in a picturesque Mediterranean stone cottage where they will stay overnight. †is is the visible storyline, but it unfolds very slowly through an endless, dedicated preparation of food, serving dinner, playing guitars, and singing. Actually, those young people are not really singing, but rather, rehearsing a particular kind of music produced in Yugoslavia during the nineteen-eighties, going through all the songs that they, somehow, more or less “know.” †e people in Another Album might be remembering on purpose, dedicating themselves to memory. But they might have 193 also been placed into a staged situation that only looks real. Johanna’s films will never reveal which of the two it is, unless we wish to violently break into the backstage. She forces us to balance on that evasive line between reality and fiction, to deal with the uncertainty as to who is telling us the story. We really do not, however, want to break those ambivalences, because the story itself might also break. Another Album is definitely a powerful film. It almost emanates the smell of that warm and dry Mediterranean air. Images of trees, glimmering and shimmering in the wind together with the sound of the crickets still resonate in my head, maybe because the rain in Stockholm never stopped… †is is the last shot, and then the day starts again. Johanna often uses loops as an aesthetic and programmatic part of her films. Here, it plays an important role. It speaks about their days: easy, actionless, and unchanging. And it bears that unbearable effect of being stuck in the story, one and the same story, again and again. But what is it that these nice young people are singing? †is music comes from the end of the nineteen-seventies and the early nineteen-eighties, mass-popular songs, generally accepted (and connoted) as Yugoslav, even today. I do not remember these songs from the original context of their making, but I do remember well that they were, inextricably, from the very end of the nineteen-eighties, tell-tale signs of the culture of that time, performed by young people on the Adriatic beaches who stayed late at night stocked up with alcohol, smokes, and guitars, evoking an image I would call “quasi-beatnik, dominantly male-deterministic, and potentially, alcoholics.” †ey sang about love and passion, about unhappy and unlucky people. †e songs of their choice were full of pathos and always carried that existentialist, from-the-gut depiction of ‘real life,’ bare life, the one that people liked to imagine, maybe exactly because under the circumstances of the Yugoslav welfare state in the nineteen-eighties, they had no chance of experiencing it firsthand. †ey often addressed sentiments or alluded to broken relationships and break- ups… And they were sung with a feeling that now, just now, everything will have to fall apart (a ballad about Pishonja and Zhuga goes, “for love you need to have a soul... all that will be, my dear, covered by rosemary, snow, and reed...). Determinism 194 195 196 197

is the prevailing spirit of these songs: †eir protagonists accept institutions and values are being torn down by the expansion the inevitable with boundless grief but without resistance; they of liberal capitalism and the head-long mass stampede towards are simply mesmerized and petrified by what is happening the EU, then Another Album displays a community which uses just now, overwhelmed with the impossibility of changing some sterile sentiment to renew the story about conservative, the outcome. Applied to the fall of Yugoslavia, this implicit reactionary times, times which have already begun to ‘acceptance of the inevitable’ hangs in the air, accurately dismantle society from within. If Johanna’s early work speaks describing the attitude of the Yugoslav elite at the beginning of of the experience of Sweden, its ideological projects, and its the nineteen-nineties. †ey were shocked by the barbarism and generational conflicts, Another Album is a similar parental the brutality. At the same time, however, they were sure that failure. But still, we should say that this is not the final victory it had to happen and there was nothing that could be done to of pessimism and doom. avoid or stop it. †is is the music we call Yugo-nostalgic. It does Many artists today are making work that bears witness not make the attempt to rethink or reconstruct the political to the appearance of global cognitive tourism. †is was not the project of Yugoslavia by any means. Rather, it is marked by case with Johanna. Intentionally or unintentionally, rationally some apolitical (but by all means, anti-Communist) moan for or intuitively, she has managed to touch upon important the good old times, times of welfare, and small petit bourgeois moments in Yugoslav history. I think that Johanna should go pleasures. Interestingly enough, some of the performers who back again, and make a third video—a video that will penetrate sang these popular songs later supported the nationalist regimes deep into the pores of a Yugoslav emancipatory project and in their respective ex-Yugoslav republics, through the lyrics of open up a space for new possibilities. If that doesn’t happen, we their new songs. could easily accuse her of post-modern melancholy and call her †is Yugoslav, Yugo-nostalgic music from the nineteen- a poetess of nostalgia... Although a magnificent poetess, indeed. eighties was less present as real concert-performed music. It is rather sung, and thus maintained and preserved, at get- togethers and parties. Johanna’s video Another Album refers to that cultural practice. However, the troupe of young musicians in her video repeats these festivities almost under museum-like conditions. †e music is not part of their lives and lifestyles as might have been the case with their parents. In the nineteen- eighties, they had, barely, just been born. In comparison to the original ways of partying in which those songs were sung, these young people appear as neutral, flat, and gentrified. †ey are borrowing voices from other people’s memories, but maybe it is precisely that remoteness and repetitiveness that gives their performance added meaning. In this sense, Another Album is a likable but at the same time like a terrifying postcard from the holidays. Johanna Billing made two videos in former-Yugoslavia so far: Magical World, which many people loved so much, and Another Album, which has yet to be understood or rejected. Both deal with transitional states—one “before,” and another (previous spread) Another Album, “after.” If Magical World is about an isolated micro-community soundtrack from film, 12” vinyl LP, Hollybush Gardens, 2007 building home-grown ideals, resisting the fact that the “old” (overleaf) Another Album, production still, 2006 198 199 200 201 202 203 City Dwellers and Seafarers

Kate Stancliffe

This Is How We Walk on the Moon‡ is a twenty-seven minute loop that documents the progress of a group of Edinburgh- based musicians, all of whom are connected by their inexperience of sailing and their city of origin. The film charts their journey from dry land into open sea as they embark on their first journey out into Edinburgh’s Firth of Forth during a single blustery, changeable day. Accompanied by a soundtrack that covers a multitude of moods—from the euphoric to the melancholic—the music reflects the changes in weather, and the shifting confidence of the novice sailors. The film appears to be a poetic guide to plain sailing, adopting a somewhat pedagogical structure comprising short cuts that focus on different elements of the scene, and punctuated by “chapters” that take the form of graphic diagrams which simplify the complex procedures, from wind movement to the art of tacking. This is a lesson in motion, where the novice sailors are, as it were, thrown in at the deep end, and against the backdrop of constantly changing weather, their progress slowly becomes visible. The instructive tone of the film extends into the gallery, adopting a sense of a basic classroom, with crudely constructed wooden benches, and a basic white projection screen, reminiscent of an inverted blackboard. The title is suggestive of the slightly educative tone of the film whilst alluding to the romantic notion of venturing into new territory. Arguably This Is How We Walk on the Moon is first and foremost a study of collective human activity, and furthermore, the struggle of each individual as they attempt to take control of an unfamiliar situation. Yet, underlying the film is a desire to portray a very specific locality that represents a distinct relationship between the city and the sea. Billing captures the undeniably unique and picturesque horizon line of the city of This Is How We Walk on the Moon, video stills, 2007 Edinburgh, whilst symbolizing a certain ignorance or fear of the sea depicted through the tentative actions of first-time (previous spread and overleaf) This Is How We Walk on the Moon sailors, despite their having lived in such close proximity , title cards, 2007 to it. They seem to represent the characteristic resident of Edinburgh, as a city-dweller, not seafarer. For them, urban 204 205 206 207 The Familiar Unknown

Lisa Panting

Iam walking with haste through the newly constructed Aue Pavilion in Kassel, looking for Johanna’s new film. In the first instance, I can’t find it and am struck by how the spatial organization reminds of some sort of architectural showcase. Next, I see something familiar, an outline of a chair, first seen on Broadway Market in East London, but now transformed into part of the installation for Johanna’s new film This Is How We Walk on the Moon. This building of spaces has become a device in her recent displays, often inspired by shapes encountered in the everyday, and part of the overall sense of how we navigate ourselves in front of her freestanding screens. The chairs and benches have been built to mirror the shape of a sail, and we are cast adrift as we sit into the vistas of This Is How We Walk on the Moon. Whilst being a film that, on some levels, might appear This Is How We Walk on the Moon, video stills, 2007 restrained and structured, it is also expressive. It displays a Edinburgh as they have always experienced it, becomes a faint stoicism used as a device to paint a picture of the landscape of memory seen at a distance and as a point of reflection. As if Edinburgh’s coastline, but also the internal struggle and space to confirm this, the city and its landmarks frequently slide for reflection that the great outside can provide. This offers a into the shot and then out of view, sometimes in focus and point of identification, and because of that, enables one to have sometimes as a blur in the distance; but above all, it provides an experience that can take you to a place of your choosing. the constant setting and point of reference throughout the film. In this sense, I’m brought to a quality in Johanna’s work As the participants venture into uncharted waters, a sense of that strikes me often in reviewing other pieces. Johanna’s films understanding is collectively achieved, not merely through a are quite familiar to me, but “familiar” does not mean the same visible improvement in the task at hand, but in a newfound thing as “known,” and this points to an enduring quality awareness and relationship to their native city. that one could equate with the similar appeal of a poem or a song—that, in repetition, it does not exhaust itself… yet. ‡ “†is is how we walk on the moon” is a song from A different temporal relation is, in fact, demanded, nineteen-eighty-four by experimental New York–based putting the viewer into another register. How this is achieved musician Arthur Russell. or more aptly, why this is achieved, seems to be of some significance—it speaks on a broader level about the way in which moving image can be used simultaneously as a vehicle for expression and experience. Johanna’s work addresses the taking of something small and creating a slow mediation within time and space. First in Another Album (2006) and then in This Is How We Walk on the Moon (2007)—longer works are being tested. Although the logic from previous works is carried forward, This Is How We Walk on the Moon, in particular, plays 208 209

more assertively with duration and the crescendo that sound can provide. The work creates a moment that allows you to almost reach a fervor, but carefully draws you back at the last moment—as though you too have been asked to journey along, but pulled back, and thus reminded that you have become part of the spatial set up, both in and out at the same time. No matter what is said, no matter how the work is encountered, there is the potential for renewal because the intention of the artist and the interpretation of an audience meet somewhere in the middle, and fold with difficulty into clear-cut resolution. For me, at least, a breathing space has been created that allows for the insecurities, not only of the viewer, but also of the artist.

This Is How We Walk on the Moon, production still, 2006

(overleaf) This Is How We Walk on the Moon, soundtrack score, production notes, 2007

(overleaf, overleaf) This Is How We Walk on the Moon, title cards, 2007 210 211 212 213 214 215

which grew out of Shakespearean scenes, where characters Let’s Go Swimming “enter, fleeing,” suddenly making the audience aware of tension. In Billing’s film, a group of young people learn how James Thomas to sail, their actions and gestures shot in quick, fleeting cuts, glimpses of gloved hands and faces, alternately, conveying remember getting out of New York City one very hot I uncertainty and determination. Even the title of Russell’s song weekend a few years ago. I packed some camping gear and the suggests an interrogation of the unfamiliar and uncharted— obligatory crate of books into my old Dodge pickup truck and through an act of learning. The slight turn of the clause “this is drove with my girlfriend to New England to meet our friend how” lends itself to not only learning, but also to an awareness Rebecca Gates (Rebecca appears elsewhere in this history, of the process of acquiring knowledge itself: a passage not delivering a truly great performance for Johanna Billing’s You unlike a trip out of the harbor, a moment communicating Don’t Love Me Yet project in Chicago in 2004). A friend had anticipation, entrance/exit, something about to happen (a given me a mix for the truck that included a number of tracks tentative “we’re sailing!” when the wind kicks in), yet never by Arthur Russell. It must have been around 2004, because releasing its grip on the potential of nothing happening, of there was a sudden renewed interest in Russell, no doubt related precisely the possibility of not making it out of the harbor. to the number of reissues were being released. The tension— here, a potentially literal standstill—is perhaps There is a picture going around of Arthur Russell, taken most palpable in the female character (the protagonist?) who is by his father sometime in the early nineteen-seventies, when seen alone, isolated from the team, beneath deck for a moment. he was still living in the Midwest. It is before Arthur Russell This instant passes quickly, but the seed is planted, and upon “the Buddhist,” before Arthur Russell “the esoteric gay disco repeated viewing (like a number of Billing’s films, This Is How hero,” before Arthur Russell “the unsung avant-garde, dub- We Walk on the Moon is looped), an incongruous “this is how” delay wonder.” He’s sitting shirtless, in jeans, playing the cello moment appears in the last minute of the film, where the same next to a lake. There is a beat-up looking canoe nearby. You can figure stands in a library, copies pages, and goes home for see a single wave crashing, not even really crashing, more like the evening—or is the day just starting? The dull sunlight of inching up on the shore. Since it is a lake, the wave is probably moment links this passage to the first scenes, but the film loops the result of a small boat going by—something simple, like a suddenly and slyly, before one can discern where the loop (or little fishing boat trolling along. Russell found a whole world in the day, or learning) begins, and where it actually ends. places like this unremarkable lake, which he dove in, sometimes This complication begins to reveal Johanna’s subtle and opting to turn the tiniest wave into something huge, at other nuanced interest in learning, her interest in the dialectical times, preferring to linger in luxurious immediacy, playing close passage out of the harbor. and small. In the picture, nothing is happening, but everything We arrive at our destination: a big lake. It looks a lot is happening: A dialectical image in standstill. The reality is like the lake where Arthur once sat, a kind of beat up, rocky that Russell is making the wave and it is coming down through shore. Rebecca is swimming. It is the usual fare: a few families, the chair, through the sand, and out into the water, then some teenagers building a bonfire and sneaking beers, lots of coming back to him, like someone who fills a bottle, throws mosquitoes. We change and join her, the water is dark and it out to sea, and waits patiently for its inevitable return. kind of muddy, but it feels great after driving in the heat. Arthur Russell is playing the lake is playing Arthur Russell You can feel the mud being kicked up and, once in a while, fish is playing the lake…. Delay and dub starts to make a lot more and other unknown things touch you. In this moment nothing sense after you look at this picture long enough. is happening and everything is happening. Johanna Billing’s 2007 film, This Is How We Walk on the Moon is informed by Russell, but also shares something of Walter Benjamin’s understanding of the dialectical standstill, 216 217

This Is How We Walk on the Moon, production still, 2006 218 219

WORKS & PROJECTS WERKE & PROJEKTE

Kvartssamtal, 1994 Series of photographs that document Serie von Fotografien, die den Ablauf the process of 15 minute conversations 15-minütiger Gespräche über künstlerische about artistic practice and development, Praxis und Entwicklung dokumentieren, reenacting 15 minute meetings held indem sie 15-minütige Zusammenkünfte between students, teachers, and von Schülern, Lehrern und Eltern in parents in Swedish primary schools. schwedischen Grundschulen rekonstruieren. Performed by Johanna Billing, Filippa Dargestellt von Johanna Billing, Filippa Dandenell, Mimmi Larsson, Andrea Dandenell, Mimmi Larsson, Andrea Sjöstström, and Gunvor Plougsgaard at Sjöstström und Gunvor Plougsgaard the sculpture department at Konstfack, in der Abteilung für Bildhauerei an der University College of Arts, Crafts Konstfack, University College of Arts, and Design. Crafts and Design.

Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog?, 1996, 2005 A taxonomy showing the result of an Eine Taxonomie, die das Ergebnis eines exchange project where Johanna Billing Austauschprojekts dokumentiert, bei dem gave the task to a student of Umeå Johanna Billing 1996 einem Studenten der Art Academy in 1996 to start dividing Umeå Art Academy die Aufgabe stellte, the fellow students into foxes and seine Studienkollegen in Füchse und Igel hedgehogs. In 2005, the same title was aufzuteilen. 2005 wurde der gleiche Titel dann used for another exchange project, “Do für ein anderes Austauschprojekt, »Do ut des; ut des; I give so that you may give” in I give so that you may give«, im Rahmen des the magazine project “Happy Pappy,” Magazinprojekts »Happy Pappy« verwendet, where Billing gave away, as a present, bei dem Billing das Buch The Hedgehog and the the book The Hedgehog and the Fox—An Fox – An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History (1953) Essay of Tolstoy’s View of History (1953) von Isaiah Berlin dem Künstler Tonico Lemos by Isaiah Berlin to the artist Tonico Auad als Geschenk überreichte. Lemos Auad. Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog, in Happy Pappy Magazine, 2005 220 221

Make It Happen, 1997–ongoing Straight from the Hip, 1998 A Stockholm-based record label that Eine Schallplattenfirma mit Sitz in Stockholm, Photographer: Jan Nordberg Fotografie: Jan Nordberg works with unestablished groups and die mit noch nicht etablierten Gruppen und Slide projection and interview magazine Diaprojektion und Interview-Zeitschrift in artists. Since it began in 1997, the label Künstlern zusammenarbeitet. Seit ihrer at Ynglingagatan 1 Gallery, Stockholm. der Ynglingagatan 1 Gallery, Stockholm. has put out 16 records on CD and vinyl, Gründung im Jahr 1997 hat die Firma 16 This project looked at the way in which Dieses Projekt beschäftigte sich damit, wie by Chihuahua, Revlon 9, Autohorse, Aufnahmen auf CD und Vinyl-Schallplatten hype produced by uncritical journalism durch unkritischen Journalismus ausgelöster Rock Out, Blood Music, SaraLunden herausgebracht. Unter anderem Chihuahua, can generate interest. A publication Medienrummel Interesse wecken kann. etc. The label has produced a number of Revlon 9, Autohorse, Rock Out, Blood was produced for the exhibition, where Für die Ausstellung wurde eine Publikation live tours and events. For example, Make Music, SaraLunden usw. Ausserdem hat die texts written by young cultural critics gemacht, für die junge Kulturkritiker Texte It Happen on Tour 1 & 2 (Momentum, Plattenfirma eine Reihe von Livetourneen reflected the respective activities of the über die verschiedenen Tätigkeiten der Moss, Norway, 2000, Superflex Studio, und Events veranstaltet. Zum Beispiel contributors. The work points to the Mitwirkenden schrieben. Das Werk zeigt Copenhagen/Rooseum, Malmö, 2001, Make It Happen on Tour 1 & 2 (Momentum, disparity between the roles in der Gesamtheit die Unvereinbarkeit der the latter produced in collaboration with Moss, Norwegen, 2000, Superflex Studio, of the producer and consumer within Rollen von Produzent und Verbraucher Karl Holmqvist). Kopenhagen/Rooseum, Malmö, 2001, Letztere the world of the media. in der Medienwelt. in Zusammenarbeit mit Karl Holmqvist produziert).

Make It Happen on Tour, Straight from the Hip, in “All Songs are Sad Songs”, interview magazine, 1998 preparations together with Karl Holmqvist, 2001 A Great Day in Stockholm, 1998 Photographer: Jan Nordberg Fotografie: Jan Nordberg How Are You Connected to Me?, 1997 A group portrait, featuring Ein Gruppenporträt von schwedischen Launch event of an interactive web Einführungsveranstaltung eines interaktiven Swedish disc jockeys on the steps of Discjockeys auf den Stufen des project also displaying a three Webprojekts, das auch eine Medborgarhuset (Citizen’s House) in Medborgarhuset (Bürgerhaus) in Stockholm. dimensional structure of dreidimensionale Struktur Stockholm. The work is among other Das Werk verweist unter anderem auf das the individual links between individueller Links zwischen HTML- things referring to the famous photo of berühmte Foto von Art Kane mit dem Titel the html pages using warp Seiten aufweist, die Kettfäden New York Jazz Musicians by Art Kane A Great Day in Harlem (1958), das New Yorker threads and helium balloons. und mit Helium gefüllte Ballons A Great Day in Harlem (1958). Jazz-Musiker zeigt. The project was based on the verwenden. Das Projekt basierte auf concept and theories of the dem Begriff und den Theorien des “Six degrees of separation,” Kleine-Welt-Phänomens (engl.: Six and the experiments made in degrees of separation = Sechs Stufen 1967 by the social psychologist der Trennung) und den 1967 von dem Stanley Milgram. Sozialpsychologen Stanley Milgram durchgeführten Experimenten. A Great Day in Stockholm, 1998 222 223

Graduate Show, 1999, Beta/DVD, 3 min. 20 sec. Keep on Doing, 2000 Director Henry Moore Selder × Regie Poster and videoteque with unedited Poster und Musikvideoarchiv mit Cinematographer Manne Lindwall • Kamera and previously not presented unveröffentlichtem und niemals zuvor Choreographer Anna Vnuk * Choreografie documentation material featuring präsentiertem Dokumentationsmaterial Performed by graduate students at Aufgeführt von Absolventen der Konstfack, footage of over sixty different live von insgesamt über sechzig verschiedenen Konstfack, University College of Arts, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. concerts from the alternative music Livekonzerten aus der alternativen Musikszene Crafts and Design 1999 Tanzvideo einer Aufführung von Absolventen scene in Stockholm, recorded by in Stockholm, das von Christian Pallin Dance video performed by graduate der Konstfack University College of Arts, Christian Pallin 1997–2000. Poster zwischen 1997 und 2000 aufgenommen wurde, students at Konstfack in Stockholm. Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Für ihr design by Reala (see overleaf). The Posterentwurf von Reala. Das Projekt wurde For her graduation project, Johanna Abschlussprojekt bat Johanna Billing ihre project was first presented at the erstmals im Jahr 2000 in den Färgfabriken in Billing invited her graduating fellow Studienkollegen des Abschlussjahrgangs Färgfabriken in Stockholm in 2000. Stockholm vorgestellt. students from the aus den verschiedenen various disciplines Disziplinen, eine Tanznummer Project for a Revolution, 2000 • to rehearse a dance × in einer Choreografie DVD 3 min. 14 sec./loop DVD, 03:14 Min./Loop number created by the der eigens eingeladenen Cinematographers Johan Phillips, Henry Moore Selder Kamera * invited choreographer Choreografin Anna Vnuk zu Sound Mario Adamsson Ton Anna Vnuk to the dem Soundtrack »Moody« Project for a Revolution takes as its Project for a Revolution bedient sich als soundtrack by ESG’s (1981) der Band ESG departure a moment in Zabriskie Point Ausgangspunkt einer Momentaufnahme track “Moody” (1981). einzustudieren. (Antonioni, 1970), but is set in present aus dem Film Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, day Sweden. In the video, the camera 1970), spielt jedoch im Schweden unserer pans through a room where a large Tage. In dem Video schwenkt die Kamera Christmas with You, 1999 crowd of young people are assembled, durch einen Raum, in dem eine grosse Schar A site specific project made in the small Ein regionales, in der kleinen Stadt Eslöv in but not yet interacting or talking to junger Leute versammelt ist, jedoch nicht town of Eslöv in the south of Sweden Südschweden durchgeführtes Projekt, für das one another. Instead, they seem to be um zu interagieren oder gar miteinander zu featuring a 7" red vinyl recording of the die Popgruppe »Ace Leaf« eine rote 7"-Vinyl- caught in a moment, seemingly waiting sprechen. Stattdessen scheinen sie in einem Christmas song “Christmas with You” Schallplatte mit dem Weihnachtslied Christmas for something. Moment festgehalten zu sein, in dem sie ganz by the temporary pop group Ace Leaf. with You aufgenommen hat. Diese wurde dann offensichtlich auf etwas warten. The vinyl was distributed free of charge im Rahmen des Projekts mit dem Titel Eslövs within in the project called “Eslövs Christmas Tale im Dezember 1999 gratis verteilt. Missing out, 2001 Christmas Tale” in December 1999. An der Plattenhülle arbeiteten auch die DVD 3 min. 14 sec./loop DVD, 03:14 Min./Loop The cover work included collaborations Grafikdesigngruppe Reala’s Jonas Williamsson Cinematographer Manne Lindwall Kamera with (the graphic design group) Reala’s und der Fotograf Jan Nordberg mit. Co-producer Rooseum Koproduktion Jonas Williamsson and photographer The film begins with a bird’s-eye view Der Film beginnt mit einer Sequenz aus Jan Nordberg. sequence where a group of people lie der Vogelperspektive, bei der eine Gruppe sprawled over a floor in an irregular von Personen unregelmässig über einen formation. No activity is in progress. Flur verteilt ausgestreckt liegt. Es findet Instead, one gets the impression of keinerlei Aktivität statt; man bekommt eher having landed in one of the more den Eindruck, in einer der innovativen innovative photo sessions of a fashion Fotosessions eines Modefotografen gelandet (above) Graduate Show, production photo, 1999 photographer. The highly staged zu sein. Für die stark inszenierten Bilder (right) Christmas with You, production photo, 1999 224 225

images inspired by a vivid childhood hat die Künstlerin ihre Inspiration aus einer memory of the artist, a collective speziellen Kindheitserinnerung bezogen: relaxation exercise (a kind of group eine kollektive Entspannungsübung (einer activity commonly found in schools Form der Gruppenaktivität, die in Schulen and kindergartens across Sweden in und Kindergärten in den 1970er Jahren the nineteen-seventies), has suddenly überall in Schweden verbreitet war), die sich and illogically turned into a kind of plötzlich und unerwartet in eine Aktivität achievement-demanding activity. The mit Leistungsdruck verwandelt hat. Die experience of always having to be there, Erfahrung, immer dabei sein zu müssen, ready to perform and participate, is immer zum Proben und Mitmachen bereit constantly present in the work, which, zu sein, durchzieht das ganze Werk, das in itself, forms a thought-provoking einen nachdenklich stimmenden Spiegel mirror of the age. unserer Zeit darstellt.

What Else Do You Do? 2001 DVD 5 min. DVD, 05:00 Min. Cinematographer Manne Lindwall Kamera Music Andreas Söderström & Pallin Musik Co-producer Panacea Performance Festival 2001 Koproduktion Members of the audience take turns to Personen aus dem Publikum treten perform in a video about performance abwechselnd in einem Video auf, das sich mit made for the Panacea Performance einer Aufführung für das Panacea Festival Festival in Stockholm. The film was in Stockholm befasst. Der Film wurde shot and shown in the auditorium im Auditorium des Moderna Museet in of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Stockholm gedreht und gezeigt. Unter anderem Among other things, the film untersucht der Film den Aufführungsprozess investigates the process of performance und die damit verbundenen Ängste. and its attendant anxieties.

Where She Is at, 2001 DVD 7 min. 35 sec./loop DVD, 07:35 Min./Loop Cinematographer Henry Moore Selder Kamera Producers: Moderna Museet Projekt Produktion des Moderna-Museet-Projekts and Oslo Konsthall und der Oslo Konsthall Where She Is at was shot at Ingierstrand Where She Is at wurde in dem 1934 von Ole Lind Bath, designed by Ole Lind Schistad Schistad und Eyvind Mostue entworfenen and Eyvind Mostue in 1934, and Strandbad »Ingierstrand Bad« gedreht, one of the few remaining pieces of das eines der wenigen erhaltenen Beispiele functionalist architecture in Oslo. funktionalistischer Architektur in Oslo ist. In

Keep on Doing, poster designed by Reala, 2000 226 227

In sharp contrast to the ideals of einem scharfen Kontrast zu den Gesundheits- You Don’t Love Me Yet, 2003 the nineteen-thirties about health und Wohlstandsidealen der 1930er Jahre DVD 7 min. 43 sec. DVD, 07:43 Min. and well-being, Ingierstrand Bath is befindet sich das »Ingierstrand Bad« heute in Cinematographer Manne Lindwall Kamera now run down. In the film, a young einem heruntergekommenen Zustand. In dem (Original song by Roky Erickson, (Originalsong von Roky Erickson, von woman climbs up the diving tower, Film steigt eine junge Frau einen Sprungturm published by R. Erickson in 1984) Roky Erickson 1984 veröffentlicht) but instead of jumping, she stands hinauf, doch anstatt zu springen, bleibt sie Musical arrangements Ida Lundén Musikarrangements wavering at the edge where she faces zögerlich am Rand stehen, wo sie sich mit Recorded and mixed by Aufgenommen und gemischt von a physical challenge and her own einer körperlichen Herausforderung und ihrer Pontus Olsson in Atlantis Studio, Pontus Olsson im Atlantis Studio, apprehensiveness. eigenen Furcht konfrontiert sieht. Stockholm June 2003 Stockholm, Juni 2003 Producers: Index—the Swedish Regie: Index – the Swedish Contemporary Art Follow Me, 2002 Contemporary Art Foundation in Foundation in Zusammenarbeit mit Nifca, A special project for Stockholm Art Es handelt sich um ein spezielles Projekt collaboration with Nifca, Helsinki. Helsinki. Koproduzenten und Partner für Fair 2002 consisting of a fair guide/ für die Stockholmer Kunstmesse 2002: Co-producers and collaborative den Film und die Tournee sind Eskilstuna magazine featuring self-designed Ein Messeführer bzw. -magazin besteht partners for the film and tour Konstmuseum (mit Balsta Musikslott), “adverts” by invited artist-run spaces aus »Hinweisen« auf Filmvorführzeiten are Eskilstuna Konstmuseum Norrköpings Konstmuseum (mit Allmän and initiatives. A special installation und Initiativen, die von den eingeladenen (with Balsta Musikslott), Kultur, Norrköping), Konstkonsulenten in and display for the magazines, in form Künstlern selbst entworfen wurden. Eine Norrköping Konstmuseum (with Jämtlandslän (mit Mångkulturkonsulenten of a corridor was designed at the fair by spezielle Installation und Auslage für die Allmän Kultur, Norrköping), und UKM), Konstkonsulenten in Västra set designer by Astrid Stenberg. Magazine in Form eines Korridors wurde Konstkonsulenten in Jämtlandslän Götalandsregionen (mit Vara Kommun), von der Bühnenbildnerin Astrid Stenberg (with Mångkulturkonsulenten and Gävle Konstcentrum (mit Musikhuset und für die Messe entworfen. UKM), Konstkonsulenten in Västra Kultur och Fritid) und Ystad Konstmuseum, Götalandsregionen (with Vara der holländische Teil der Tournee wurde Kommun), Gävle Konstcentrum produziert in Zusammenarbeit mit dem (with Musikhuset and Kultur och Performance Tour Festival If I Can’t Dance I Fritid) and Ystad Konstmuseum. The Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution und Dutch part of the tour was produced das Madrider Event in Zusammenarbeit mit in collaboration with the performance Madrid Abierto. tour festival. If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution Das You Don’t Love Me Yet-Projekt besteht aus and the Madrid event were staged in einem Film und einer laufenden Livetournee collaboration with Madrid Abierto. (2002–2006), bei der ortsansässige Musiker in verschiedenen Städten dazu aufgerufen The You Don’t Love Me Yet project wurden, den 1984 entstandenen Song »You consists of both a film and an ongoing Don’t Love Me Yet« des texanischen Sängers live tour (2002–06) in which local und Songschreibers Roky Erickson zu covern. musicians in different cities were Der Film You Don’t Love Me Yet (2003) invited to cover the 1984 song “You zeigt, wie eine Gruppe von Musikern den Don’t Love Me Yet” by the Texan Song im Atlantis-Tonstudio in Stockholm singer-songwriter Roky Erickson. aufnimmt, und schlachtet ein bühnengerechtes Follow Me , Alternative You Don’t Love Me Yet Fair Guide, The film Wiederholen von Melodie und Liedtext publication 2002 (2003) depicts a group of musicians zum Entwirren populärer Auslegungen von 228 229 performing the song together in Liebe aus, während er gleichzeitig auch die Atlantis recording studio in Stockholm. Entstehung zeitgenössischer Subjektivität The film exploits a dramatic repetition bewertet. of melody and lyrics to unravel popular constructions of love, while presenting You Don’t Love Me Yet-Tour, 2002–2007 an evaluation of the formation of Index, Stockholm, 4. Oktober 2002; Eskilstuna contemporary subjectivity. Konstmuseum, Eskilstuna, 23. August 2003; Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Norrköping, You Don’t Love Me Yet tour 2002–07 27. September 2003; Tingshuset, Östersund, Index, Stockholm, October 4, 2002; 4. Oktober 2003; Frieze Art Fair, London, Eskilstuna Art Museum, Eskilstuna, 8. Oktober 2003; Vara Consert House, Vara, August 23, 2003; Norrköping Art 9. November 2003; Bar Alahuone, Helsingfors, Museum, Norrköping, September 27, 4. Dezember 2003; Sjömanskyrkan, Gävle, 2003; Tingshuset, Östersund, October 6. Dezember 2003; Ystads Konstmuseum, 4, 2003; Frieze Art Fair, London, Ystad, 24. Januar 2004; Vedanta Gallery, October 8, 2003; Vara Consert House, Chicago, 30. April 2004; Milton Keynes Vara, November 9, 2003; Bar Alahuone, Gallery, Milton Keynes, 15. März 2005; Helsingfors, December 4, 2003; Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, 19. März 2005; Sjömanskyrkan, Gävle, December Festival Boulevard, Hertogenbosch, 5. August 6, 2003; Ystad Art Museum, Ystad, 2005; De Veenfabriek, Leiden, 27. November January 24, 2004; Vedanta Gallery, 2005; The Lab, San Francisco, 16. November Chicago, April 30, 2004; Milton Keynes 2006; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid Abierto, Gallery, Milton Keynes, March 15, Madrid, 12. Februar 2007 2005; Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, March 19, 2005; Festival Boulevard, You Don’t Love Me Yet-T-Shirt, 2003 s’-Hertogenbosch, August 5, 2005; Entwurf von Åbäke, mit dem Schriftzug »You De Veenfabriek, Leiden, November Don’t Love Me Yet«, einer Cover-Version des 27, 2005; The Lab, San Francisco, zuvor für das Projekt verwendeten Schriftzugs. November 16, 2006; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid Abierto, Madrid, February 12, 2007

You Don’t Love Me Yet T-shirt, 2003 Designed by Åbäke, with their font You (left) You don’t love me Don’t Love Me Yet, yet, T-shirt, designed by Åbäke, 2003 a cover version of the typeface previously (right) Are You Curious Enough to Try Some used for the project. Flexibility Exercises, A4 collage, 2004 230 231

Look out! 2003 Music Karl-Jonas Winqvist Musik DVD 5 min. 20 sec./loop DVD, 05:20 Min./Loop Participants Pia Sandström, Mitwirkende Cinematographer Henry Moore Selder Kamera Audrey Weeren, Shot in and around Gainsborough Gedreht in den und in der Umgebung der Seon-Ja Seo, Studios, London, October 2003 Gainsborough Studios, London, Oktober 2003 Jan Mech, Producer: Milch, London Produziert von Milch, London Remco Kwik, The video takes, as its starting point, Ausgangspunkt des Videos ist die sich Chris van Zyl, the changing urban landscape around verändernde Natur rund um die Gainsborough Par Strömberg, Gainsborough Studios in East London, Studios im Osten Londons im Herbst 2003, zu Magnus Monfeldt, fall 2003, while the old film studio was der Zeit, als das ehemalige Filmstudio gerade Liesbeth Sijzling, in the process of being turned into a in einen Komplex mit Luxuswohnungen Karina Bakker luxury apartment complex. In the film, umgebaut wurde. In dem Film führt ein Co-produced by Smart Project In Koproduktion mit Smart Project Space an estate agent shows an incongruous Immobilienmakler einen Haufen junger Space (production assistants: Astrid (Regieassistenten: Astrid Schumacher bunch of youngsters around a new Leute, die von ihrem Äusseren und ihrem Schumacher and Mutaleni Nadimi- und Mutaleni Nadimi-Mbumba), mit luxury development. The work Auftreten mit den Örtlichkeiten nicht Mbumba) with support from The Arts Unterstützung von The Arts Grants highlights the process of gentrification vereinbar sind, durch das neue Luxusquartier. Grants Committee, Sweden. Committee, Schweden by contrasting dilapidated council Das Werk wirft ein Schlaglicht auf den Magic & Loss was filmed in Amsterdam Magic & Loss wurde 2005 in Amsterdam housing and public spaces with the Prozess der Gentrifizierung, indem es in 2005, and shows a group of people gedreht und zeigt eine Gruppe von Leuten newness and unaffordability of the baufällige gemeindeeigene Sozialwohnungen packing and removing the contents beim Packen und Abtransportieren des development. und heruntergekommene öffentliche of a seemingly pleasant apartment. Hausrats einer anscheinend freundlichen Plätze dem neuen, unerschwinglich teuren The methodical movements of Wohnung. Die methodischen Bewegungen Apartmentkomplex gegenüberstellt. people packing boxes, carrying the der Menschen, die Kisten packen, den Inhalt apartment’s contents to the street, der Wohnung auf die Strasse tragen und die Are You Curious Enough to Try Some Flexibility Exercises?, 2004 and hoisting the furniture to the Möbel mit Seilen und Rollen nach unten An A4 collage, part of the “makeover” Es handelt sich hier um eine DIN-A4-Collage, ground with ropes and pulleys, silently befördern, erzählen stillschweigend eine project, a glossary in response to Teil des »Übereignungs«-Projekts, ein Glossar creates a mysteriously choreographed einer Choreografie folgende, geheimnisvolle “Europe: The Third Way” (1999) by als Antwort auf »Europa: der dritte Weg« narrative. The owner of the flat is Geschichte. Der Wohnungsinhaber ist Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder. A (1999) von Tony Blair und Gerhard Schröder. not present, and the unemotional nicht anwesend, und die emotionslose project initiated by Jan Verwoert and Das Projekt wurde von Jan Verwoert und detachment of the movers emphasizes Gleichgültigkeit der Möbelpacker wirft Sören Grammel together with students Sören Grammel zusammen mit Studenten der the question of what has happened to die Frage auf, was mit der Person oder den of the Academy of Fine Arts Umeå Academy of Fine Arts Umeå Project Group the person or persons who once lived Personen, die hier einmal gelebt haben, Project Group. Presented in the show initiiert und 2005 in der Schau Whatever there. The title references an album geschehen ist. Der Titel des Films bezieht sich Whatever Happened to Social Democracy? Happened to Social Democracy im Rooseum by Lou Reed, recorded at a time when auf ein Album von Lou Reed, das zu einer Zeit at Rooseum, 2005. gezeigt. he was dealing with the loss of several aufgenommen wurde, als er mit dem Verlust people around him. mehrerer Menschen aus seinem unmittelbaren Magic & Loss, 2005 Umfeld fertig werden musste. 16 min. 52 sec./loop, 16-mm-Film auf DVD überspielt, 16mm film transferred to DVD 16:52 Min./Loop Cinematographer Nina da Costa Kamera Camera Assistant Bas Tiele Kameraassistent Sound Marjo Postma Ton 232 233

Magical World, 2005 of the international use of English, auch zum Ausdruck, wenn die Kinder DVD 6 min. 12 sec./loop DVD, 06:12 Min./Loop and as such, follows the meaning of sich mit der Verwendung des international Cinematographer Manne Lindwall Kamera the lyrics. The song is, at times, both gebräuchlichen Englisch und somit auch Musical Arrangements Petra Jezutkovie Musikalische Arrangements melancholic and existential, and is mit dem Sinn des Liedtextes abmühen. Original Song by Sidney Barnes in 1968 Originalsong von Sidney Barnes 1968 conceivably at odds with their tender Der Song ist melancholisch und existenziell (Chevis Music publishing Corp, BMI) (Chevis Music Publishing Corp, BMI) age. The rehearsal is interwoven with zugleich und steht im Widerspruch zu ihrem Participants Petra Jezutkovie, Mitwirkende life outside, leading up to an intimate jugendlichen Alter. Die Probenszenen sind Sonja Borie, performance by the children in their verwoben mit Szenen des Lebens ausserhalb Tadej Horwatie-Cajko, music class. des Probenraums, was zu einer intimen Mara Matie-Soldan, Schilderung der Kinder in ihrer Musikklasse Ena and Sara Anicie, führt. Lenka, Martin and Josip Mestrie, Klara and Lucija Petrae, Another Album, 2006 Ivana Leksie, DVD 28 min. 12 sec./loop DVD, 28:12 Min./Loop Nikolina Penie, Cinematographers Manne Lindwall, Johanna Billing Kamera Zvonomir Retkovac, Featuring Marin Golub, Mitwirkende Mane Galovié, Jurica Golub, Tomislav Djurinec Lana Protega, Co-producer: WHW/Rooseum In Koproduktion mit WHW/Rooseum. Vedran Paraé, Production Assistant: Sonja Borie Regieassistentin: Sonja Borie Ida Grbié, This film is a collaboration made with Dieser Film ist in Zusammenarbeit mit einer Jura Ivanovié, a group of children from a cultural Gruppe von Kindern des ausserhalb von Rasa Cop, center outside Zagreb, Croatia. The Zagreb, Kroatien, gelegenen Kulturzentrums Petra Jezutkovié direct subject is the children’s rehearsal entstanden. Unmittelbarer Gegenstand Producers: Momentum Nordic Festival Produktion des Momentum Nordic Festival of the song Magical World, originally des Films ist das Einstudieren des Liedes for Contemporary Art, Moss, with of Contemporary Art, Moss mit freundlicher written by the black American singer »Magical World«, das ursprünglich 1968 kind support from Iaspis, International Unterstützung von Iaspis, International Artist Sidney Barnes in 1968. A personal von dem afroamerikanischen Sänger Sidney Artist Studio Program in Sweden Studio Program in Sweden transition is expressed by the song Barnes geschrieben wurde. Es spielt auch eine Set against the backdrop of singing Another Album findet vor dem Hintergrund that could also be said to allude to the persönliche Komponente in den Song mit cicadas and barking dogs, Another von zirpenden Grillen und bellenden Hunden fast-paced development taking place hinein, der – so kann man behaupten – auf Album takes place between sunset zwischen Sonnenauf- und Sonnenuntergang in a relatively young country facing die schnelle Entwicklung anspielt, die sich in and dawn on the island of Krapanj auf der Insel Krapanj an der kroatischen Küste European Union demands for future einem relativ jungen Land vollzieht, und zwar on the Croatian coast. Another Album statt. Another Album ist eine Inszenierung integration into the group of member hinsichtlich der Forderungen der Europäischen is a staging of what is, for this group dessen, was für diese Gruppe von Studenten states. This is further articulated as the Union zur zukünftigen Integration in die of students and musicians, a regular und Musikern ein regelmässiges Treffen children struggle to handle the arrival Gruppe der Mitgliedsstaaten. Dies kommt coming together to play and sing songs bedeutet, um Lieder der Novi Val from the Novi Val (New Wave) era in (New Wave)-Ära in der Musik der 1970er music of the nineteen-seventies and und 1980er Jahre im ehemaligen Jugoslawien nineteen-eighties in former Yugoslavia. zu spielen und zu singen.

Magical World, production photo, Dubrava Cultural Centre, 2005 234 235

Another Album, 2007 Lina Selleby, 12" vinyl LP 12"-Vinyl-LP Sara Lunden, Featuring Marin Golub, Mitwirkende Steven Cuzner, Jurica Golub, Ida Lunden, Lana Protega, Magnus Wikström, Vedran Paraé, Per Lager, Ida Grbié, Karl-Jonas Winqvist, Jura Ivanovié, Erik Bünger, Rasa Cop, Henry Moore Selder, Petra Jezutkovié Åsa Sohlgren, Producers: Johanna Billing, Produziert von Johanna Billing, Marcella Svensson, Hollybush Gardens (London), Hollybush Gardens (London), Adam Kammerland, Petra Jezutkovié, and Åbäke Petra Jezutkovié und Åbäke Björn Carlberg, A vinyl soundtrack of the film Another Ein Vinyl-Album mit dem Soundtrack des Vijaya, Album, featuring a selection of garden Films Another Album, einer Auswahl von Emely Ahlsen, recordings on Krapanj island, July Gartenaufnahmen von der Insel Krapanj Anders Norman, 2006, including songs from the golden im Juli 2006, einschliesslich Songs aus der Märta Myrstener, Novi Val (New Wave) era in ex- goldenen Novi Val (New Wave)-Ära in Ex- Valdemar Gezelius, Yugoslavia and extra material from the Jugoslawien sowie zusätzlichem Tonmaterial Hanna Jensen, same recording session. aus der gleichen Aufnahmesession. Aina Myrstener, Christian Hörgren, You Don’t Love Me Yet / Magical World, 2007 Paola Cederberg, 12" vinyl 12"-Vinyl-Schallplatte Marcus Palm, Featuring in Magical World (2005) Mitwirkende in Magical World (2005) Stefan Zschernitz, Petra Jezutkovié Albion Venables, Sonja Borie, Ayesha, Tadej Horwatie-Cajko, Per Gäfvert, Mara Matie-Soldan, Eric Beyond, Ena and Sara Anicie, Vejde Gustavsson, Lenka, Martin and Josip Mestrie, Patrik Anderson, Klara and Lucija Petrae, Martin Linder, Ivana Leksie, Magnus Henriksson, Nikolina Penie, Jakob Hallberg Zvonomir Retkovac, Producers: Åbäke, Apparent Extent Produziert von Åbäke, Apparent Extent Mane Galovié, (Munich), Kavi Gupta Gallery (München), Kavi Gupta Gallery (Chicago) Tomislav Djurinec (Chicago) and DCA—Dundee und DCA-Dundee Contemporary Art Centre. Contemporary Art Centre. Featuring in You Don’t Love Me Yet (2003) Mitwirkende in You Don’t Love Me Yet (2003) Andreas Söderström, Frode Fivel, Lisa Lundqvist, 236 237

This Is How We Walk on the Moon, 2007 Special thanks to Karl-Jonas Winqvist, Besonderer Dank gilt DVD 27 min./loop DVD, 27:20 Min./Loop Andreas Berthling, Cinematographers Manne Lindwall and Johanna Billing Kamera Henry Moore Selder, Sound Pia Patté Ton Jan Billing, Featuring Johnny Lynch, Mitwirkende Guthrie Stewart, Emily Roff, Kate Gray, Joe Collier, Kajsa Ståhl, Jenny Gordon, Maki Suzuki Guthrie Stewart Set on the Firth of Forth with its Schauplatz dieses neuen Films ist der Musical soundtrack arranged by Musikalischer Soundtrack arrangiert iconic bridges this new film centers Firth of Forth mit seinen Brücken mit Johanna Billing and performed by von Johanna Billing, mit Johnny Lynch on the sea and on the experiences of Kultsymbolcharakter. Im Mittelpunkt Johnny Lynch, vocals, Karl-Jonas (Gesang), Karl-Jonas Winqvist (Gesang), sailing. Intrigued by the contradiction stehen das Meer und die Erfahrung des Winqvist, vocals, Sara Wilson, vocals, Sara Wilson (Gesang), Andreas Söderström of Edinburgh’s proximity to the North Segelns. Billing war fasziniert von dem Andreas Söderström, guitar and (Gitarre und Melodica), Christian Hörgren Sea and the apparent disconnection Widerspruch, dass Edinburgh in unmittelbarer melodica, Christian Hörgren, cello, (Cello), Henry Moore Selder (Gitarre und of the majority of the population to Nachbarschaft zur Nordsee liegt, die Mehrheit Henry Moore Selder, guitar and bass, Bass), Tuomas Hakava (Gitarre und Orgel), it, Billing invited a group of local der Bevölkerung jedoch offensichtlich Tuomas Hakava, guitar and organ, aufgenommen von Tuomas Hakava im Up musicians on a sailing trip. Events überhaupt keine Affinität zu dieser hat. recorded by Tuomas Hakava in Up and and Running Studio, 2007, mit Ausnahme unroll from the preparations on land Daher lud sie eine Gruppe ortsansässiger Running Studio 2007, except for the des Eröffnungsliedes “The Western”, das through to the journey under the Firth Musiker zu einem Segeltörn ein. Es werden opening song “The Western,” written von Woo geschrieben und eingespielt wurde of Forth Rail Bridge, the students’ first die Ereignisse von den ersten Vorbereitungen and performed by Woo (Independent (Independent Project Records, 1989). Die awkward steps in unknown territory. an Land bis hin zur Fahrt unter der Firth-of- Project Records 1989). Original version Originalversion von »This is how we walk The commensurate soundtrack: “This Forth-Eisenbahnbrücke hindurch dargestellt: of “This is how we walk on the moon” on the moon« wurde von Arthur Russell is how we walk on the moon,” takes die ersten unbeholfenen Schritte der written by Arthur Russell (Point geschrieben (Point Music/Orange Mountain a song from the nineteen-eighties Segelschüler auf unbekanntem Territorium. Music/Orange Mountain Music, 1984). Music, 1984). Soundtrack gemischt und by experimental New York-based Der entsprechende Soundtrack “This is how Soundtrack mixed and mastered by gemastert von Joachim Ekermann, Make musician Arthur Russell, in an we walk on the moon”, nimmt einen Song Joachim Ekermann, Make Wave. Wave. Entwurf der Titelkarte von Åbäke. interpretation rendered by Billing des experimentellen, in New York lebenden Title cards design by Åbäke. Recorded Aufgenommen am Firth of Forth und in Port and her collaborators, using voice and Musikers Arthur Russell aus den 1980er Jahren on the Firth of Forth and at Port Edgar Marina, South Queensferry, Edinburgh. stringed instruments. wieder auf, der hier von Johanna Billing und Edgar Marina, South Queensferry, In Koproduktion mit The Collective Gallery’s ihren Kollegen in einer Neuinterpretation Edinburgh. »One Mile Programme«, künstlerische mit Gesang und Streichinstrumenten Co-produced by the Collective Leitung: Kate Gray, Koordination: präsentiert wird. Gallery’s “One Mile” program, Kate Stancliffe und Siobhan Carroll, lead artist Kate Gray, co-ordinators Produktionsassistent: Jill Brown, mit Kate Stancliffe and Siobhan Carroll, Unterstützung des Scottish Arts Council production assistant Jill Brown, with Lottery Fund, der Paul Hamlyn Foundation support from the Scottish Arts Council und der Documenta 12 mit Unterstützung des Lottery Fund and The Paul Hamlyn Iaspis, International Artist Studio Programm Foundation and by documenta 12 with in Sweden. support from Iaspis, International Artist Studio Program in Sweden. 238 Johanna Billing 239

Born Geboren 1973 in Jönköping Sweden Schweden Lives and works Lebt und arbeitet in Stockholm

SOLO EXHIBITIONS EINZELAUSSTELLUNGEN (selected Auswahl)

1996 Är du lik en känd person? . . . . Galleri Service, Stockholm 1998 Straight from the Hip ...... Ynglingagatan 1, Stockholm 1999 Coming Up ...... 149A, Kungl. Konstakademien, Stockholm 2000 Project for a Revolution . . . . . Galleri Flach, Stockholm 2001 Where She is at ...... Moderna Museet Projekt, Stockholm / ...... Oslo Kunsthall, Oslo Keep On Doing ...... Sub Bau, Gothenburg 2002 Where She Is at ...... Bild Museet, Umeå 2003 You Don’t Love Me Yet . . . . . Index, Stockholm Studio Works ...... Milch at Gainsborough Studios, London 2004 You Don’t Love Me Yet . . . . . Vedanta Gallery, Chicago 2005 Look out! ...... Kavi Gupta Gallery, Project Room, Chicago Magical World ...... Hollybush Gardens, London 2006 SubUrban: Johanna Billing . . . Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville Magical World ...... P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York Magical World ...... Standard, Oslo More Films about Songs Cities & Circles . . . . . Marabouparken, Stockholm Magic & Loss ...... Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago Songs, Cities & Circles . . . . . Basis, Frankfurt am Main 2007 New Media Series: Johanna Billing . Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis Another Album ...... Fundacio la Caixa, Barcelona Another Album and Another Album . Vinyl LP Release, Hollybush Gardens, London Magical World ...... Galeria Posibla, Bucharest Magic & Loss and other films . . . Joan Prats Gallery, Barcelona This Is How We Walk on the Moon . Collective Gallery, Edinburgh Another Album & other films . . . Jönköping Konstmuseum, Jönköping Forever Changes ...... Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel Keep on Doing ...... Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee

Production of This Is How We Walk on the Moon title cards with Åbäke 240 Johanna Billing 241

GROUP EXHIBITIONS GRUPPENAUSSTELLUNGEN I (Ich) / Performative Ontology, Secession, Vienna | Group Dynamics, Aspen Art (selected Auswahl) Museum, Aspen | Don Quijote, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam | Outside the Living Room, GB Agency, Paris | Everyday Every Other 1998 Index Edition Multiple Show, Galleri Index, Stockholm | Performance, An Art Brothel, Day, Blackwood Gallery / The University of Toronto, Mississauga | Normalisation, Herkulesgatan, Stockholm Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö | The Moderna Exhibition 1999 Eslövs Julsaga, Eslöv | Light Show, Signal, Malmö | Dummy, Catalyst Arts, 2006, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Stockholm | biennale cuvée. Weltauswahl der Belfast Gegenwartskunst, OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich, Upper Austria 2000 I’ll Never Let You Go, Panacea Festival, Moderna Museet, Stockholm | Onufri 2007 Held Together with Water. Kunst aus der Sammlung Verbund, MAK, Vienna | Silence. ‘00’ In and Out, National Gallery of Tirana, Tirana | Lost in Space, Färgfabriken, Listen to the Show, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino | L›œil-écran Stockholm | My Generation, Kulturhuset, Stockholm | Viva Scanland, Catalyst ou la nouvelle image. 100 vidéos pour repenser le monde, Casino Luxemburg—Forum Arts, Belfast | Swe.de, Rikstutställningar; Uppsala Konstmuseum; Sandvikens d’art contemporain, Luxemburg | Free Electrons. Lemaître’s video collection, Konsthall; Jönköpings Museum; Röda Sten, Gothenburg tabacalera, International Contemporary Cultural Center of San Sebastián, San 2001 The Path of Resistance, Moderna Museet, Stockholm | Intentional Communities, Sebastián | Love Addiction, Practices in Video Art from 67 to the present, Galleria Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius | Vl – Intentional Communities, Rooseum Center Comunale, d’Arte Contemporanea, Monfalcone | Some Time Waiting, Kadist for Contemporary Art, Malmö | Projects for a Revolution, Le Mois de la photo à Art Foundation, Paris | Confined Innocence, Artcite, Windsor, Canada | Montréal, Montreal The Eventual, Frac Bourgogne, Dijon | Dreamlands Burn, Muscarnok—Kunsthalle 2002 Baltic Babel, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö | P_A_U_S_E, Budapest, Budapest | Re-, Site Gallery, Sheffield Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea 2003 The Principle of Hope, Three Colts Gallery, London | Pipshow #6, Fabrikken, Oslo | The Edstrandska Foundation Prize, Malmö Konsthall, SCREENINGS AND PROJECTS AUFFÜHRUNGEN UND PROJEKTE Malmö | Socialism—A Love Letter, Fia Backstrom, New York | The Peripheries Become the Center, Prague Biennale 1, Prague | Delays and Revolutions, 50th 1997 Big City, Bright Lights, Cool Cool People (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here), International Venice Biennale, Venice | Vinyl Sky, Intro, Vilnius K, Stockholm | How Are You Connected to Me?, Ynglingagatan 1, Stockholm 2004 Collect Call, H.arta, Timisoara | The Vl Yugoslav Biennial of Young Artists, Vrsac/ 1996 – Belgrade | Delayed on Time, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb | Green Box, 1998 Musik för mig, kanske för dig, Musslan bar, Stockholm, 1998 | Index Lounge Trafo Gallery, Budapest Special: Make It Happen, Featuring Chihuahua, Index Stockholm 2005 Art that Works / Catch Me!, 49th October Salon 2005, Belgrade | Istanbul, 9th 1998 – Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul | Rock Music (dedicated to Igor Zabel) Gallery P74, 2000 Make It Happen, Backstage, Stadsteatern, Stockholm | 2000 Park; Park the Bus— Ljubljana | ADAM, Smart Project Space, Amsterdam | With or Without, Make It Happen on Tour, Event Weekend, Momentum, Moss, Norway | Make It cultural center, Belgrade | Blava narrow focus, Tranzit, Bratislava | Do Happen on Tour, Real Work, Werkleitz Biennale, Tornitz | Make It Happen on Tour, Not Interrupt your Activities, Royal College of Art, London | Dialecticts of Model 4, Büro Friedrich, Berlin | Make It Happen on Tour, Signal, Malmö Hope , 1st Moscow Biennale, Moscow | New Art Event, Ulrich Museum of 2001 Snowflakes, Bangkok Experimental Filmfestival, Project 304, Bangkok | Art, Wichita, Kansas | Revolution is on hold, L’Associazione Isola dell’Arte, Zwischenräume der Architektur, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg | BLICK—New Milano | Normalisation, Nova Gallery, Zagreb | The Gravity in Art, De Appel, Nordic Film & Video 2001. Exh. cat. Moderna Museet and Nifca, Stockholm Amsterdam and Oslo | Future Perfect, Adam Street, London | Le Bonheur, L’Etoile 2006 Sprung ins kalte Wasser, Shedhalle, Zürich | No More Reality (Crowd and de Belleville, Paris | N.E.W.S. Exhibition, Roxy Cinema, Visby; Bornholm Performance: Re-enactment, public space and collective utopia) curated by Museum, Bornholm | Rotation ú Utrydningstruet Elefant, Nifca and Morgenbladet, Jelena Vesic and Clare Staebler, Center For Cultural Decontamination, Belgrade Oslo | Make It Happen on Tour, Superflex Studio, Copenhagen; Rooseum Center Summer Festival, Belgrade | Fantom, Charlottenborg Exhibition Hall, for Contemporary Art, Malmö Copenhagen | TBA, Time-Based Art Festival, PICA, Portland | Belief, 2002 Result, video compilation, KPD, Chicago | Room for a Revolution, Deluxe Projects, Singapore Biennale, Singapore | Try again. Fail again. Fail better, Momentum—4th Chicago | Unter Uns, Kunstverein Celle, Celle | Es ist schwer das Reale zu Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, Moss, Norway | Berühren—1. Videofestival, Kunstverein Munich, Munich | Uppsala Short Film 242 Bibliography / Bibliografie 243

Festival, Uppsala | Coming , Swedish Embassy, Tokyo | Right About Now/Beyond EXHIBITION CATALOGUES AUSSTELLUNGSKATALOGE Paradise, National Gallery in Bangkok | Snowflakes, Göteborg Film Festival, AND BOOKS UND BÜCHER Gothenburg | Follow Me, Stockholm Art Fair, Stockholm (selected Auswahl) 2003 The Spirit of Portraying, DAE, San Sebastián | Biennale De L’image, Centre 2000 Lost in Space. Text by Eva Broberg. Exh. cat. Färgfabriken, Stockholm | pour l’image contemporaine, Geneva | Recontres Internationale Berlin and Real (work). Edited by Corinna Coch and Christiane Mennicke. Exh. cat. 4. Werkleitz Paris | Courtisane Filmfestival, Ghent Belgium | Look of Love, Elverket, Biennale, Halle. | In & Out. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Tirana. | Stockholm | Här och Nu, Moderna Museet, Stockholm Swe.de, Rikstutställningar, Stockholm. 2004 Video Zone, International Video/Art Biennial, Tel Aviv | Criss-Cross, program by 2001 The Artist, the Individual and the Community. Texts by Maria Lind and Mats Stjernstedt. Nifca Kino, Lund/ Andorra Cinema, Helsinki | Slim Volume, Poster Publication Exh. cat. Moderna Museet Projekt, Stockholm. | Projects for a Revolution. Exh. cat. 2004 | Tranzit, Magazine Project, Respekt/ der Standard in collaboration with The Power of the Image: Le Mois de la Photo, Montréal. | BLICK—New Nordic Maria Crista Film & Video 2001. Exh. cat. Moderna Museet and Nifca, Stockholm and Oslo. | 2005 Makeover, What ever happened to Social Democracy?, Umeå Konsthögskola Project at I’ll Never Let You Go. Exh. cat. Panacea Festival, Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö | Happy Pappy, “Do, Ut, Des; 2002 Project 1, Pause. Exh. cat. Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea. I give so that you may give,” Publication, London | Pastor Bonus, Publication, 2003 Cream 3. Texts by Charles Esche. Edited by Phaidon Press, London. | Johanna Bogota/ Oslo/ Mexico | Taking the Matter into Common Hands, A symposium put Billing Works 3. Texts by Helena Holmberg, Lisa Panting & Mats Stjernstedt. Edited together with Maria Lind and Lars Nilsson, Iaspis, Stockholm by Lisa Panting, Milch. | The Peripheries Become the Center. Exh. cat. Prague 2002 – Biennale 1, Prague. | Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer. Edited by 2007 You Don’t Love Me Yet, Film and live tour: Index Stockholm, Eskilstuna Konstmuseum, Fransceso Bonami. Exh. cat. The 50th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale Di Norrköping Konstmuseum, Tingshuset Östersund, Frieze Art Fair, London, Vara Venezia, Venice. Konserthus, Nifca Helsinki, Sjömanskyrkan, Gävle, Ystad Konstmuseum, Vedanta 2004 Delayed on Time. Text by Nada Beros. Exh. cat. Museum of Contemporary Art, Gallery Chicago, Milton Keynes Gallery, If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your Zagreb. | Untitled (As Yet). Exh. cat. The Vl Yugoslav Biennial of Young Artists, revolution, Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, Festival Boulevard, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Vršac/Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro. | Svensk Konst Nu. Text by Sophie Allgård, The lab, San Francisco, Madrid Abierto, Madrid Stockholm. 2005 Istanbul. Edited by Charles Esche. Exh. cat. Ninth Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul. | Dialecticts of Hope. Text by Jan Verwoert. Exh. cat. First Moscow GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES AUSZEICHNUNGEN UND STIPENDIEN Biennale, Moscow. | Do Not Interrupt Your Activities. Text by Gair Boase. Exh. cat. Royal College of Art, London. 2006 Suburban: Johanna Billing. Text by Dana Self. Exh. cat. Knoxville Museum of Art, 1999 Iaspis International Artists’ Studio Program in Sweden Knoxville. | Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better. Exh. cat. Momentum—Fourth 2001 Swedish Arts Council, Working Grant Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, Moss, Norway. | Belief. Exh. cat. 2003 The Edstrandska Foundation Prize Singapore Biennale, Singapore. | Konst som Rörlig Bild. Exh. cat. SAK/Filmforum, 2004 West Balkan Air, Nifca Recidency Program, What, How and For Whom, Zagreb Stockholm. | Modernautställningen. Text by Magdalena Malm. Exh. cat. Moderna Stockholm Stad Kulturstipendium Museet, Stockholm. | No More Reality, Crowd and Performance: Re-enactment. Public 2005 49th October Salon Award, Belgrade Space, Use of Body. Text by Jelena Vesic. Exh. cat., Belgrade. | Did Somebody Say 2006 Swedish Arts Council, Working Grant Participate:? An Atlas of Spatial Practice. Edited by Markus Miessen, London. | Frieze Projects, Artists’ Commissions and Talks 2003–2005. Edited by Polly Staple and EDUCATION AUSBILDUNG Melissa Grönlund, London. | If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution. Edited by Frédérique Bergholtz, Tanja Elstgeest, and Annie Fletcher, The 1994 – Netherlands. | Here and Now Real, Not Yet Concrete… Text by What How and For 1999 Konstfack International College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm Whom. Exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, Ljubljana. | Autobiographies. Edited by Vit Havranek. Transit Catalogue, Secession, Vienna. 244 Bibliography / Bibliografie 245

2007 The Screen Eye or the New Image, 100 Videos to Represent the World. Edited by Régis frieze 64. | Panting, Lisa. “The Innocence Has Evaporated.” Untitled Michel. Exh. cat. Casino Luxemburg, Luxemburg. | Look Behind Us, A Blue Magazine. | Stjernstedt, Mats. “The Artist, the Individual and the Community.” Sky. Interview by Philipp Kaiser, Helena Selder, text by Polly Staple, et al. Exh. Moderna Museet Projekt. cat. Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Dundee Contemporary 2003 Holmberg, Helena. “You Don’t Love Me Yet.” Nifca Info. November. | Karlsson, Arts. | documenta 12. Text by Susanne Jäger. Exh. cat. documenta, Museum Lena. “Edstrandska Stiftelsens Stipendiater.” Konsten. September. | Paulsson, Fridericianum, Kassel. | Another Album. Exh. cat. La Caixa, Barcelona. | Taking Paulsson. “Band Aid för de utbrända.” Autodidakt. July. | the Matter into Common Hands, on Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices. Edited by 2004 Camper, Fred. “Critic’s Choice.” Chicago Reader. May. | Cascella, Daniela. “Eyes Johanna Billing, Maria Lind, and Lars Nilsson. Iaspis, Stockholm. | Held Together with Wide Shut.” Blow Up Magazine 72. | Jansson, Anders. “An Interview with Johanna Water. Kunst aus der Sammlung Verbund. Text by Philipp Kaiser. Exh. cat. MAK, Vienna. Billing.” E-CART. May 4. | Olevik, Josefin. “Goda Möten med stora risker.” Dagens Nyheter. January 29. | Plender, Olivia. “After the Rehearsal.” frieze 81. | Sandqvist, ARTICLES ARTIKEL Gertrud. “A New Wave of Political Consciousness.” Frame 1. | Yokoyama, Ikko. (selected Auswahl) “Lovely Place—Art Tour Vol.5.” Studio Voice #345. 2005 Arndtzén, Mårten. “Turkiskt Koncept.” Expressen. September 21. | Behrman, Pryle. 1999 Allerholm, Millou. “Vart tog omvärlden vägen?” Dagens Nyheter. June 4. | Bergman, “1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.” Art Monthly 284. March. | Bokern, Liv-Marit. “Konstprojekt i samtiden.” Kombi 1. | Jönsson, Dan. “Hur mycket Anneke. “Bedingungsloser Körpereinsatz.” Artnet. | Heiser, Jörg. “Istanbul City Vilks tål Skåne?” Dagens Nyheter. December 4. | Olsson, Emma. “Kladdiga elever Report.” Frieze 95. | Kopenkina, Olga. “The Logics of the ‘Neglected’ Center.” showade.” Dagens Nyheter. May 19. | Sokolow, Paulina.“Ömsint och lekfullt flirtande Art Margins. | Pollack, Barbara. “Russia’s Jump-start.” Art in America. June/ konst.” Svenska Dagbladet. May 23. July. | Riff, David. “Face-control.” Moscow Art Magazine. 1993/2005 | Strandberg, 2000 Allerholm, Millou. “En vibrerande kantig klump eller?” Dagens Nyheter. May 7. Marit. “Tidningen.” Norrlandsoperans. | Wigh, Rebecka. “Istanbulbiennalen 1.” | Allerholm, Millou. “Generation 00.” Dagens Nyheter. August 12. | Cavallin, Konsten. October 10. Petter. “Full filofax.” Nöjesguiden. October. | Chan, Suzanna. “Belfast.” Circa 93. 2006 Andersson, Fred. “Politiska Verk imponerar.” Svenska Dagbladet. March 25. | Engström, Ulrika K. “Stockholm Hjältar.” Dagens Nyheter. December 22. | Arndtzén, Mårten. “Johanna Billing på Marabouparken.” Kulturnytt. P1, Sveriges | Ericsson, Lars O. “Uppror ur Unga ögon.” Dagens Nyheter. April 13. | Eriksen, Radio. February 22. | Blom, Ina. “Failure as Good Taste.” Frog 4. Mette. “Kjaerlighet och kunst.” Moss Avisen. May/June. | Gardell, Hanna. “Den | Ekholm, Rikhard. “Begripligt utan komendium.” Svenska Dagbladet. March 11. svåra konsten att komma hem till jul.” Sydsvenska Dagbladet. November 5. | Cornell, Frida. “Biennalernas tid.” Konstperspektiv 2. | Forsberg, Nils. | Hansson, Annika. “00-tal presenterar.” 00-tal 23. “Europa finns i Malmö.” Expressen. April 27. | Forsberg, Nils. “En förtrollad 2001 Allerholm, Millou. “Välhängt av nybakade curatorer.” Dagens Nyheter. January 5. Värld.” 00-tal 22. | Golonu, Berin. “The 9th Istanbul biennial.” Zingmagazine. | Cornell, Frida. “Make It Happen.” Organ 6. | Delgado, Jérôme. “Pas de July. | Hawkins, Margaret. “Video Takes Us for Brief Stay in Kids’ ‘Magical Révolution.” La Presse. October 15. | Frigstad, Gard Olav. “På vei mot tvilen.” World.’” Chicago Sun-Times. April 14. | Olofsson, Robert and Johan Idesjö. “How Aftenposten. September 6. | Lévesque, Maroussia. “Le Pari de la Révolution.” are you doing today?” Vidvinkel. | Grönlund, Melissa. “Moss, Norway.” Frieze 103. Coucours, Les Lauréats de la 5e édition. | Kanakura, Liv. “Dialog och Reflektion.” November. | Hebert, Niels. “Slagord är modernt.” Arbetarbladet. March 22. B-uppsats/diss., Stockholms universitet. | Ninacs, Anne-Marie. “Just do it: on a | Lytal, Benjamin. “Art in Pursuit of Reality.” The New York Sun. April 13. few ethical models proposed by the practise of art.” Commensaux, when art becomes | Johansson, André. “Att möta verkligheten i Sundbyberg.” The Jet Set Junta. circumstance. SKOL Center des arts actuel. | Lehman, Henry. “Videos Pushing February 12. | Kaiser, Phillip. “Magical World. Johanna Billing’s Video Work.” Stills Out of Photo Fest.” The Montreal Gazette. September 15. | Nacking, Åsa. “Det Parkett 76. | Knockaert, Tineke. “Anywhere Anyone.” Urban Mag. | McKinnon, kollektiva som en möjlighet.” Rooseum Provisorium 2. | Ouatik, Bouchra Hanna. John. “Johanna Billing, Kavi Gupta Gallery.” Flash Art. July. | De Wachter, Ellen “Projet d’une non-revolution.” Coucours, Les lauréats de la 5e édition. | Petrovskaja, Mara. “Momentum.” Map Magazine 8. | Montigny, Britte. “Tankeväckande Jelena. “Med en känsla av lätt melankoli.” Out/in the Cold. Valand and Institute of tolkningar.” Hallandsposten. May 6. | Netter, Ulrike. “Ihr liebt mich doch.” Welt Contemporary Art Moscow. | Sandell, Joanna. “Konsten revolterar i Tirana.” Dagens kompakt Rhein-Main-Neckar. November 17. | Orden, Abraham. “The Windy Apple.” Nyheter. January 8. | Schaffer, Per Henrik. “Kick för konsten.” Vi 12. June 7. Artnet . May 18. | Ravini, Sinziana. “Vildsvin, Playboy och Nordiskt Vemod.” 2002 Grammel, Sören. “Es ist schwer das Reale zu berühren.” Newsletter Göteborgs Posten. September 6. | Robinson, Walter. “Weekend Update.” Artnet. May 12. Kunstverein München. | Larsen, Lars Bang. “Vi-Intentional Communities.” | Schütte, Christoff. “Warten auf die Revolution.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 246 247

November 17. | Selder, Helena. “More Films About Songs, Cities & Circles.” AUTHORS Interview, exhibition guide, essay, and map. February/March. | Sholis, Brian. “Normalization.” Artforum; Critic’s pick. October 4. | Stahre, Ulrika. “Normalt? Philipp Kaiser, curator Helena Selder, curator Polly Staple, curator and Det här?” Aftonbladet. March 23. at the Museum für of Marabouparken, writer based in London, 2007 What, how and for Whom. “Magical World, These Days.” What is to be done? 16. Gegenwartskunst Basel Stockholm. and is editor at large of | Antognoli, Paolo Emilio. “Il Magico Mondo di Dubrava.”Around Photography 10. since (2002–2007). frieze magazine. | Herbert, Martin. “Another Album.” Art Monthly. March. | Moss, Ceci. Appointed curator “The Waiting Room.” A Million Keys. April 18. | Ghaznavi, Corinna. “Documenta.” MOCA, Museum for Akimbo. June 21. | Kynaston, Michael. “This Is How We Walk on the Moon.” Contemporary Art, The Skinny Magazine 27. June. Los Angeles 2007. 248 249

EXPANDED FOOTNOTES

A Project by Double agents

A project initiated and edited by Lisa Panting, a member of the research group Double agents based at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Co-convenors of the group are Anne Tallentire and Graham Ellard.

EXPANDED FOOTNOTES AUTHORS

Carole Bertinet is an Mika Hannula, Séamus Kealy is curator Maria Lind is a curator James M. Thomas is a Volker Zander is based editor working for TV professor for Artistic of the Blackwood and writer, presently freelance curator, writer, in Munich, Germany. and cinema based in Research at the Gallery, University of the director of Iaspis and musician. He is He plays bass in the Paris. Faculty of Arts and Toronto at Mississauga, (International Artists currently a graduate US rock band Calexico Design, University of in Canada. The text is and Studio Program in student in the Art and runs a record label Cecilia Canziani is an Gothenburg. He is a from the exhibition text Sweden), Stockholm. History department at called Apparent. independent curator and writer, lecturer, critic, “A Few Notes on an Stanford University, founding member of the and curator based in Exhibition: Everyday Lisa Panting is a and is also working on Åbäke is a graphic curatorial platform 1:1 Berlin. His text is taken Every Other Day,” for member of Double an exhibition about the design group based in projects, based in Rome. from Politics of Small the exhibition “Everyday agents and a director musical and artistic London. Gestures—Chances Every Other Day,” of Hollybush Gardens, legacy of Arthur Russell. Ivet Eurlin, member and Challenges for held at the Blackwood London. “ Radio Days; Tour of curatorial collective Contemporary Art Gallery, May 17 – June Rob Tufnell is a director Diary” was previously What, How and for (Istanbul 2006). 18, 2006, which included Malin Ståhl is a director of Ancient and Modern, printed in “If I can’t Whom/WHW, based in Johanna Billing, Ivan of Hollybush Gardens, London. Dance, I don’t want Zagreb. Karl Holmqvist is an Grubanov, Ilya and London. to be part of your artist and writer that Emilia Kabakov, Jelena Vesie is an revolution,” edited by Magnus Haglund is a lives and works in Berlin Phil McCrum, and Kate Stancliffe is an independent curator, Frédérique Bergholtz, critic and writer based in and Stockholm. Marina Roy. independent curator art critic, and editor Tanja Elstgeest, Gothenburg, currently based in London. of Prelom (Journal for Astrid Schumacher, writing a book on the Jonathan Lethem is Images and Politics) and Annie Fletcher Swedish writer and a novelist based in Anne Tallentire is an based in Belgrade. (Rotterdam 2005). sound artist Åke Hodell. Brooklyn, New York. artist based in London. His novel You don’t love Jacob Wren is a writer me yet is published by C šhen Tamir is a curator based in Montreal. Doubleday (2007). and art critic based in His latest book is Toronto, Tel-Aviv, and Families Are Formed New York. Through Copulation (Pedlar Press) and he writes about art for C Magazine. 250 251

Johanna Billing EXHIBITION AUSSTELLUNG Look Behind Us, A Blue Sky Director Clive Gillman Direktor Curator Anne-Marie Watson Kurator This book is published in Diese Publikation erscheint anlässlich Curatorial assistance Valerie Norris Wissenschaftliche Assistenz conjunction with the exhibitions der Ausstellungen Liz Shannon Press, Communication Jan McTaggart Medien, Kommunikation Johanna Billing Katie Holmes Forever Changes Installation Ewan Wilson Ausstellungstechnik Part 1 8 September – 28 October 2007 Part 2 30 October – 30 December 2007 CATALOGUE KATALOG Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel Editor Philipp Kaiser Herausgeber Editing Malin Ståhl, Lisa Panting, Jacqueline Uhlmann Redaktion Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Copyediting Sylvia Bargstedt Lektorat mit Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung (German Deutsch) St. Alban-Rheinweg 60 Alix and Bish Sharma CH – 4010 Basel (English Englisch) www.kunstmuseumbasel.ch Translations Klaus Roth Übersetzungen (Interview Ph. Kaiser, Interview H. Selder) EXHIBITION AUSSTELLUNG Ewa Dewes Kunstmuseum Basel (P. Staple) Director Bernhard Mendes Bürgi Direktor List of Work Werkbeschreibungen Curator Philipp Kaiser Kurator Elizabeth J. Tucker Curatorial assistance Jacqueline Uhlmann Wissenschaftliche Assistenz (Preparation interview Ph. Kaiser) Press, Communication Christian Selz Medien, Kommunikation Graphic design Åbäke, London Grafische Gestaltung Installation Käthe Walser, Christian Schöni Ausstellungstechnik Typesetting Åbäke, London Satz Typeface Cardigans Schrift Johanna Billing Printing Dr. Cantz’sche Druckerei, Ostfildern Druck Keep on Doing Paper 115 s /qm Munken Print Extra, 1.5 Papier Binding Verlagsbuchbinderei Dieringer, Gerlingen Buchbinderei Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee 15 September – 4 November 2007 © 2007 Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst; Dundee Contemporary Arts Limited; Dundee Contemporary Arts Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 152 Nethergate and authors und Autoren DUNDEE DD1 4DY © 2007 www.dca.org.uk for the reproduced works of für die abgebildeten Werke von Johanna Johanna Billing by the artist Billing bei der Künstlerin 252 253

PUBLISHED BY ERSCHIENEN IM Hatje Cantz Verlag Zeppelinstraße 32 73760 Ostfildern Deutschland / Germany Tel. +49 711 4405-200 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS DANK Fax +49 711 4405-220 www.hatjecantz.com

Hatje Cantz books are available internationally at selected bookstores and from the following distribution partners: USA / North America – D.A.P., Distributed Art Publishers, New York, www.artbook.com Sponsor Museum für UK – Art Books International, London, www.art-bks.com Gegenwartskunst Basel: Australia – Tower Books, Frenchs Forest (Sydney), Fonds für künstlerische Aktivitäten www.towerbooks.com.au im Museum für Gegenwartskunst der France – Interart, Paris, www.interart.fr Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung und der Belgium – Exhibitions International, Leuven, Christoph Merian Stiftung www.exhibitionsinternational.be Switzerland – Scheidegger, Affoltern am Albis, www.ava.ch For Asia, Japan, South America, and Africa, as well as for general questions, please contact Hatje Cantz directly at [email protected], or visit our homepage at is supported by: www.hatjecantz.com for further information.

Trade edition: ISBN 978-3-7757-2070-0 Museum edition: ISBN 978-3-7204-0172-2 Printed in Germany Cover illustration Åbäke, London Additional support for the publication End papers Vorsatzpapier from Double agents, London: Make It Happen on Tour 1, Park; Park the Bus, Momentum, Moss, 2000 Back cover Umschlagabbildung Magical World, production still, 2005 254 255

PHOTO CREDITS FOTONACHWEIS THE ARTIST WOULD LIKE TO THANK

All photos by Johanna Billing except for: Katrina Brown, Anne-Marie Watson, Lisa Panting, Malin Ståhl, Felix Rühöfer, Annie Fletcher (If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution), Manne Jan B Christensen (8, 12, 49) Lindwall, Helena Selder, Karl-Jonas Winqvist, Åbäke, Miki Tsuganuma, Carolina Grau, Ricardo Iriarte (10 – 11) Silvia Sauquet, Volker Zander, Philipp Kaiser, Jacqueline Uhlmann, Collective Gallery, Karl-Jonas Winqvist (27, 75, 82, 85, 182 – 184, 186 – 188, 198 – 199) and all writers and photographers contributing to this book Åbäke (40, 51, 77, 91, 111, 151, 181, 194 – 195, 221, 226, 228, 238) Mimmi Larsson (42) Cem Yücetas (62) Emanuel Almborg (64, 116 – 119, 121, 128 – 130, 132) Jonas Jörneberg (67) Siobhan Carroll (73) Alex Mahan (84) Manne Lindwall (95, 97) Johanna Löwenhamn (104 – 107) Sinziana Ravini (115) Henry Moore Selder (137) Sal Kroonenberg (141 – 144) Gabriela Grech (148 – 149) Jordi Nieva (190 – 191) Anders Billing (220)

Courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London

The Conversation between Helena Selder and Johanna Billing was made in December 2005 for the exhibition and publication “More Films about Songs, Cities & Circles” at Marabou Park in Stockholm, February 10th – March 26th, 2006