Synopsis
Clock DVA's "Resistance" presents a tense, stylized vision of urban paranoia rather than a conventional narrative. Adi Newton and the band appear amid stark, performance-led imagery, while rapid edits, shadowy settings, graphic compositions, and fractured visual effects create a sense of surveillance and impending danger. The clip mirrors the song's mixture of dance-floor momentum and dystopian unease, turning its themes of secret meetings, oppression, action, and emotional endurance into a compact piece of early-1980s industrial video art.
Factoids & Trivia
- "Resistance" was released in 1983 as the first single from Clock DVA's *Advantage* album, their second LP for Polydor.
- The single appeared in both 7-inch and 12-inch editions. The standard version runs for approximately 3 minutes and 50 seconds, while the extended mix runs for about 5 minutes and 50 seconds.
- The video was later circulated through Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision label as part of *TV Wipeout: A Contemporary Entertainment For Television*, a 1984 compilation assembled in the spirit of an experimental video magazine.
- Its inclusion on *TV Wipeout* placed Clock DVA alongside artists and filmmakers including The Fall, Test Dept, Japan, Psychic TV, Yello, Renaldo & The Loaf, and Andy Warhol.
- The track came from a particularly accessible phase of Clock DVA's sound, combining post-punk and industrial textures with funk, jazz, and a pronounced dance beat.
- The recording features Adi Newton, Paul Browse, John Valentine Carruthers, Dean Dennis, and Nick Sanderson. Hugh Jones produced and engineered the *Advantage* sessions.
- The clip belongs to the same Sheffield experimental culture associated with Cabaret Voltaire, whose visual and musical work helped define the region's early industrial scene.
- Clock DVA's own historical material singles out the "Resistance" clip as one of the notable visual statements from the *Advantage* period.