The short film In Dependence mixes newly recorded fictive and documentary sequences with archive material from film history. The fictive sequences examine the psychological and physical dynamics of the crowd by showing how two individuals (played by Elin Klinga and David Mjönes) act out the behavioral pattern of the crowd isolated in an abstract, private space. The documentary sequences and the quotes from film history show the crowd in scenes that correspond to the actions of the two individuals, but they also add an historic dimension, by showing how the fascination of the crowd has been something essential and recurrent in modern culture – from the hysteria of the pop concert audience and the elaborate mass choreography of the Broadway musical, to the Stalinist spectacles, and so on. The three parts of the film follow different velocities and rhythms, and represent separate moments in the dynamics of the crowd: the self-denying attraction of belonging, the collective extasis of unity, and the chaos and the melancholic awareness of dissolution.

In Staging Independence Anna Ådahl displays the props and the scenography with which the people and the mass are staged and stage themselves. The installation consists of a number of works in different media which refer to techniques for organization and control of masses, and for representation of the people as a spectacle. A central work is Human Pyramid, a 1:1 reconstruction of a structure made to carry a mass of people, inspired by a photography by Rodchenko, Female Pyramid from 1936. In Staging Independence one can also see Democracy, a series of photographs of peoples’ parks documenting their architecture and scenography, Crowd Control and Loudspeaker, two objects normally used to direct and control a crowd’s movements, and the video Fire, which implicitly refers to Elias Canetti’s anal.