Gone, Gone Beyond 360 Surround A/V Movie

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“Hey, hey, have you ever tried… reaching out to the other side?”

Gone, Gone Beyond is an immersive a/v spatial cinema work by People Like Us, which breaks the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what’s behind.  

Commissioned by Naut Humon, the founder of immersive theatre project CineChamber, Gone, Gone Beyond is a 10 screen/8 speaker work by Vicki Bennett with seamless wrap around projection and surround sound, where the audience sit inside. It uses edited collage sewn together in a giant patchwork. Pull on a thread and watch whole new narratives expand and unravel all at once on a 360 palette. The project has been a work in progress since 2017, and is currently just over an hour long.

The initial 47-minute film premiered in San Francisco 11-14 October 2017 at RML CineChamber Recombinant Festival at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts.  The hour-long Stage 2 is currently in production through 2018 and we are looking for partners to co-present the 47-minute and hour-long piece from 2019 onwards.

DOWNLOAD THE BROCHURE
INTERVIEW

Review of private preview of Gone, Gone Beyond at Goldsmiths, London:

Privileged to attend an absolutely marvellous event at Goldsmiths College, a unique piece of immersive 360 degree cinema put together principally by People Like Us aka Vicki Bennett. It builds on her previous work, juxtaposing familiar film and music to unsettling effect; one such instance is a visual/soundclash of Julie Andrews singing “The hills are alive . . .” spliced with footage from Apocalypse Now and The Doors’ “The End”. But the audio and imagery builds layer upon layer to a meaningful, psychedelic cacophony, layer upon layer of the familiar; MOR, The Beatles, Kraftwerk and much, much more over an elaborate, kaleidoscopic sensurround collage of footage featuring the likes of Orson Welles, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, as well as dancers, dervish sequences and set pieces from avant garde-inspired Hollywood design.

The familiar and the unsettling; that’s the idea. Taking these film clips out of their original contexts, presenting them as part of a gushing continuum of dynamism, breakthrough, without resolution; because, in life, there is no resolution, no end to the story, simply this multiple, simultaneist mass of concurrent narratives, whose sheer kinetic energy, like an ever-flowing waterfall, is the real story that cinema is telling us; “endings” are mere temporary hiatuses, the definition of fiction; this is a meticulous, deceptively chaotic audiovisual blast like no other. And it deserves to be seen by everyone. — David Stubbs (April 2019)

Gone, Gone Beyond excerpt
Vicki Bennett discusses the aesthetics of Gone, Gone Beyond and The Mirror (the single screen sister project)

Hallwalls Artist in Residence (HARP)

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We’re pleased to tell you that Vicki Bennett will be Hallwalls Artist in Residence (HARP) at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY from 2019-2020. We will start making a new project for them later this year and keep you up to date once we begin. We are doing the residency remotely until Fall 2020, when we will be there to output and broadcast the completed new work.

Hallwalls Artists-in-Residence Project (HARP) is a successful multidisciplinary artists residency program, which is funded in most years (with the exceptions of 1996–97, 1997–98, and 2004–05) by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; in most years by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (for visual & media artists); and from 2008 to 2010 by the Nimoy Foundation (for visual & media artists). Some musicians in residence since 2010 (Roscoe Mitchell in 2010, Wadada Leo Smith in 2012) have been supported in addition or solely by the Jazz Presenting Program of Chamber Music America (CMA). The goal of the project is to support invited artists through professional stipends, materials and fabrication budgets, workspace, access to equipment and technical support, public presentations of their work in solo exhibitions, site-specific installations, screenings, and concerts, and interaction with local artists and communities through collaboration, lectures, master classes, workshops, and in-school residencies. Coming next year, three new HARP projects, made possible with major grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Cullen Foundation. 

HARP Artists 2019-2020
Douglas Ewart, George Lewis, & Douglas Repetto
People Like Us (Vicki Bennett)
John Oswald

The Mirror

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We are pleased to announce a new audiovisual immersive cinema performance by People Like Us called The Mirror, performed (and screened in Theatrical form if in the US) from March 2018 worldwide.  

The Mirror is a live a/v performance which splices together movie snippets with unique sample-based music exploring the masks that we wear represented through the lens, using parallel narratives across the screen to depict an ever-changing stream, rather than a singular, fixed being, narrative or moment in time.

“A feat of research and craft, this new work is a spellbinding inquiry into editing and juxtaposition; a collage one can unthread allowing the viewer to discover hidden stories through familiar images. The soundtrack is performed live, made up from hundreds of preexisting songs, as well as particular sounds from the original film clips.” — Flatpack Film Festival

”With The Mirror Bennett has proven herself an alchemist of popular music, able to push her source material into fresh and engaging places.” — The Wire

”Because of the use of familiar pop sounds, “The Mirror” is often grandiose. Like an epic film only with highs, never letting the listener down or letting him doubt the power of pop. Even, of course, when the coordinates are twisted, mixed, over or underrepresented. Each moment feels like something that could only happen in a parallel universe. Although that may sound naïve, it’s just a lost thought of reaction to the beautiful collages of People Like Us in “The Mirror”. This mirror doesn’t reflect an image of ourselves or an image of pop. But an image on the way memories drift and are being constant rebuilt. An unfinished collage.” — Boomkat

“Bennett celebrates the song stylists, the crooners, the sirens and interpreters of melody, and all the psychedelic in-between. The songs she pulls from seem to stem between 30’s ballroom and 70’s soft disco, here presented like being in a deep REM-state, dreaming of being at the drive-in, in warped Panavision. Essential.” toneshift.net

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/the-mirror

18 March 2018 – World Premiere: Athens Greek Film Archive Foundation (as part of Shadow Libraries: UbuWeb in Athens, organised and produced by the Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens) – tickets/info
13 April 2018 – UK Premiere: Liverpool FACT – tickets
17 April 2018 – Belfast Film Festival at Crescent Arts Centre – tickets
20 April 2018 – London Cafe Oto – tickets
21 April 2018 – Birmingham Flatpack Festival – tickets
12 May 2018 – London Splice Festival, at Rich Mix – tickets
11 July 2018 – London Cafe Oto, double bill with Carl Stone – tickets
19 July 2018 – Gijón LEV Arenas Movedizas – free entry
26 July 2018 – MACBA, Barcelona – tickets
17th September 2018 – Theatrical Screening (not live) – Bryce’s Show on WFMU
19th & 20th September 2018 – Theatrical Screening (not live) – Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn – tickets
20 October 2018 – 100 Years of Copyright Festival, Berlin HKW – tickets
2 November 2018 – Spill Festival, Ipswich – tickets
10 November 2018 – Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo Norway – tickets
15 November 2018 – Brighton “Cinecity” Film Festival at Fabrica – tickets
30 November 2018 – Theatrical Screening (not live, we do not perform in concerts in the US) Recombinant Festival, Gray Area, San Francisco – tickets
9 February 2019 – Theatrical Screening (not live, we’ll not be there) – The Voix de Ville 2019 / ARTxFM annual fundraiser at Columbia Theatre, Louisville Kentucky – tickets
27 March 2019 – Musikbrauerei, Berlin – tickets
6 April 2019 – Theatrical Screening (not live) – Other Cinema, ATA, Valencia St, San Francisco – tickets
23-28, April 2019 – Theatrical Screening at AFO Olomouc, Czech Republic.
9 May 2019 – Venice Biennale at HILLARY: The Hillary Clinton Emails by Kenneth Goldsmith after the opening reception. RSVP
14 June 2019 – Newcastle Culture Lab – The Mirror and Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
22 June 2019 – Iklectik Art Lab, London
15 September 2019 – Theatrical Screening (not a concert) at 21C Museum Hotel, Lexington, KY (introduced by Hearty White)
28 September 2019 – Theatrical Screening (not a concert) at Radius Gallery Santa Cruz, CA
Coming up in 2020 – Geneva, Monaco, Innsbruck

If you are a festival organiser with a budget and are interested in booking this, please get in touch by way of our Contact Form.  If you are in a country requiring a work visa to perform we can in very special circumstances make this work into a stand alone movie, but generally this is only available as a performance with the artist present and you will need to gain necessary papers for us to agree.

Publicity photo for both the concert and the album – credit Joe Gerhardt

SUPPORTING WORKS AND ARTICLES

Download higher resolution images from The Mirror

3 artist commissions : we have commissioned new works by artists responding to The Mirror:
Reflects by Dina Kelberman (December 2018)
Abject Mirror by Porest (Mark Gergis) (January 2019)
The Mirror by Hearty White (January 2019)
(view all three on one url)

The Mirror CD/digital download contains music from The Mirror, and tracks from Gone, Gone Beyond

New Film for Improvising Musicians and Artists – titled Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.  This is not the first film we have made of this type. Previous to this was Notations (which included a national tour in the UK (followed by further dates internationally) with a fantastic roster of improvisers, supported by Sound and Music), as well as some collaborations where we have made the film then made sections available to other artists and musicians to respond (Gesture Piece and CCCitations). You can enquire about performing with this movie by way of our Contact Page. Our first performance will be in Newcastle, UK in June 2019, as part of a collaboration with Newcastle University Department of Music.

No.8 in The Wire Magazine’s releases of 2019
  • MACBA, Barcelona
  • MACBA, Barcelona
  • at Splice Festival 2018 – photo by Martyna Kubrak
  • Splice Festival 2018 – photo by Martyna Kubrak
We have expanded 10 minutes of The Mirror to be a 360 surround sound and video work

Interview with Anne Hilde Neset on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, 8 January 2019
Listen to the interview
Interview with Robert Worby and full airy of performance of The Mirror (at Cafe Oto) on BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now, 19 January 2019
Listen to the interview

Graham Duff – The Mirror a reflection upon the work and surrounding subject matter
Interview in The Wire Magazine in a phone conversation with Emily Bick of The Wire Magazine, Vicki Bennett reflects on The Mirror, Gone, Gone Beyond, and working with preexisting footage.

Info sheet / teaching pack – collected insights on the making of this work by Vicki Bennett.

Still from Reflects by Dina Kelberman
Still from Reflects by Dina Kelberman (click to view the work… please enable pop-ups)
The Mirror at Venice Biennale

Shortcut for this url is http://peoplelikeus.org/themirror.html

Continue reading →

Limited Offer: 75% off our Full Digital Discography

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Happy 2020!  As a new year thank you we are offering our entire digital discography to you for 75% off for the next 24 hours.  This might offer you an extra incentive to suddenly have days (weeks.. months?) of most of our back catalogue instantly, and in return you would be helping us out a great deal to carry on with what we do, making art full time… did you know People Like Us is 30 this year?

If you’d like to buy the digital discography just go to our bandcamp page and go to any link in the digital download section and you can purchase at 75% from any page, until tomorrow.  Here’s a shortcut to our bandcamp page now:

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com

Many thanks for your continued support!

On The Radio With Hearty White

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People Like Us are on the radio on Thursday 26 December 2019 with Hearty White for a very special joint show with special guests Gwilly Edmondez, Ergo Phizmiz and Caterina Robertson (aka The Reason).

Tune in on from 7-8pm NY Time (that is Midnight-1 Thursday evening in the UK) on WFMU. Playlist and subsequent archive of the show here:
https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/90406

Buy our full digital discography

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Also have been updating our bandcamp with some more items, both digital and merchandise, including adding the option of buying the full digital discography with one click of a button, enabling you to get a 40% discount by doing so. 

As ever, you can if you wish access a lot of our work for free online from various places, it is very important for us ethically to continue to be generous with the “sharity” ideal even if we are low in income ourselves. HOWEVER, by buying from us you contribute to keeping us going financially and enabling us to produce more. We do this for a living, we don’t have a fancy side job, as is also the case with a lot of the artists we collaborate with!  So if you can chip in we more than appreciate it.

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/

Notations & The Mirror, Santa Cruz

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Indexical Presents Digital Alchemy in Fall 2019
28 September 2019 at 8pm
People Like Us Theatrical Screening of “The Mirror” (not a concert!) and artist Q&A | Blectum from Blechdom perform “Notations” by Vicki Bennett
https://www.indexical.org/events/2019-09-28-people-like-us-blectum-from-blechdom

Documented below, both the Q&A and performance – the event moved to Radius Gallery at the last minute due to a mass power outage in Santa Cruz:

We Edit Life: An Evening with People Like Us

We Edit Life is an evening of film screenings by People Like Us including the premiere live-score performance of Notations by Blectum from Blechdom.

A theatrical screening of The Mirror, a feat of research and craft, this new work is a spellbinding inquiry into editing and juxtaposition, a collage one can unthread allowing the viewer to discover hidden stories through familiar images. The soundtrack is made up from hundreds of preexisting songs, as well as particular sounds from the original film clips. This 35 minute screening will be followed by an artist Q&A.

A live performance of Notations, a film for improvising musicians and artists, Notations has been created by Vicki from hundreds of different film clips, where the content conceptually or literally portrays different kinds of ‘gestures’ or ‘instructions’ to be read by the improvising artists on stage as a visual score.

Notations has been performed in the past by an impressive international cast of improvisers, each with radically different approaches and, as each show features a different combination of artists, every performance is completely unique. This time around the performers with the film will be Kristin Erickson and Bevin Kelley, aka electronic music duo Blectum from Blechdom.


Supporting Negativland in London

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(L-R) Mark Porest, Jon Wobbly/Negativland, Mark Negativland, Vicki PLU and Irene Moon

People Like Us will be on the same performance bill as Negativland for the first time in 22 years at London’s Cafe Oto on 27 October 2019, performing The Horror!! An a/v concert which selects from the more scary (and funny) segments of Vicki’s work, newest and old. Also on the bill the following night will be our friend Irene Moon.
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/baba-yagas-hut-presents-negativland/
(update – 27th has sold out, tickets still available for the 28th, no PLU, but Irene Moon instead)

Stage times :
Doors 7:30
Yuko – 7:50 – 8:20
People Like Us (27th) / Irene Moon (28th) – 8:40 – 9:10
Negativland – 9:30 – 10:50