Yes, these two albums are now reissued… on cassette!
Now deleted on cassette but available on bandcamp:
PEOPLE LIKE US – A FISTFUL OF KNUCKLES – SOLD OUT!!!
PEOPLE LIKE US & KENNY G – NOTHING SPECIAL – SOLD OUT!!!
CITATION CITY
Update (2018) :
The soundtrack is now available for sale as a digital download:
https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/citation-city-ost
Citation City is a 42 minute audiovisual performance work which sources, collages and edits 300 major feature films where content is either filmed or set in London – creating a story within a story, of the film world, living its life, through extraordinary times of change, to see what happens when these multiple narratives are combined… what will the story tell us that one story alone could never tell?
“The result is a sweeping panorama of London, a London as represented through cinema – not the real city at all, but one that exists in the collective imagination of moviegoers throughout the decades.” Filmmaker Magazine
Please note: this is now retired. However, we occasionally make edits available as stand-alone movies for cinema screening.
A time-travelling voyage through one city, assembled from hundreds of movie clips and inspired by the wanderings of Walter Benjamin. A patchwork of over 300 features either filmed or set in London, Citation City combines multiple narratives to create the story of one city in a period of enormous change. Pieced together by audiovisual artist Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us), this beguiling, labyrinthine work takes its cue from Benjamin’s Arcades Project, an ambitious attempt to map out Paris in fragments which was cut short by the author’s death in 1940. Flatpack Film Festival
Interview with Kenneth Goldsmith in Found Footage magazine about Citation City
Interview with Peter Jaeger in filling Station Issue 63 featuring Citation City
Background:
Inspired by The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, this audiovisual performance work by People Like Us is created from 1000s of clippings of text and visual media, collaged using a system of “convolutes”, collated around subjects of key motifs, historical figures, social types, cultural objects from the time. By gathering and assembling such groups of similar yet unrelated, he revealed a hidden, magical encyclopaedia of affinities, a massive and labyrinthine architecture of a collective dream city. On reading Benjamin, his approach to editing astonished Vicki Bennett, and the similarity of their creative processes of cutting and collating extensive lists of subject matter by context.
As a side project, Vicki also invited selected sound artists to create distinct soundtracks to the work in order to produce two new films.
Performances:
9 December 2014 Cafe Oto preview http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/jennifer-walshe-sharon-gal-andie-brown-people-like-us.shtm
29 January 2015 World Premiere at transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
28 March 2015 UK Premiere at Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham, as part of a larger WFMU and Walter Benjamin-themed programme
17 April 2015 Parede, Portugal
18 September 2015 Bristol Encounters Short Film Festival
26 September 2015 Whitechapel Gallery at Walter Benjamin Now Symposium (at 5pm), London
15 October 2015 Leeds Art Gallery (private screening for students only)
24 October 2015 Monty Hall, WFMU
28 October 2015 Red Room, Baltimore
21 November 2015 Brighton Cinecity Festival
12 April 2016 Sonic Protest Festival, Paris
7 May 2016 Delco Festival, Nimes
23 November 2016 Dundee Contemporary Arts
March 2017 Hull UK City of Culture/ReROOTed
Citation City is now retired. However we now make it available for movie screenings.
October 2017 Other Cinema, San Francisco (20-minute stand alone movie edit)
December 2019 Dare Conference, Ghent (screening)
A portion of Citation City previewed at London’s Cafe Oto on 9 December 2014 then World Premiered in full at transmediale, Berlin on 29 January 2015. It’s UK Premiere was at Flatpack Film Festival on 28 March 2015, and London Premiere at Whitechapel Gallery on 26 September 2015 as part of the Walter Benjamin Now Symposium.
Citation City education/teaching pack
PDF download: citation city teaching pack
We thought it may be useful to make a document explaining the process of making this work. This pdf is intended as a companion to the audiovisual work, giving examples of the process one might undertake to create new work when sourcing from a large media database. This particular example relates to moving image and musical composition, but the methods can translate to other platforms that use composition, directing, editing, creative narratives and story telling.
Press and articles:
Interview in Filmmaker Magazine (January 2015)
InEnArt Magazine (January 2015)
Vicki Bennett/People Like Us
Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett has been working across the field of audio-visual collage, and is recognised as an influential and pioneering figure in the still growing area of sampling, appropriation and cutting up of found footage and archives. Working under the name People Like Us, Vicki specialises in the manipulation and reworking of original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film and radio. People Like Us believe in open access to archives for creative use. In 2006 she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. People Like Us have previously shown work at Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, The Barbican, Centro de Cultura Digital, V&A, Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, Pompidou Centre, Venice Biennale, Maxxi and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. The ongoing sound art radio show ‘DO or DIY’ on WFMU has had over a million “listen again” downloads. since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.
Longer Biography
Filmography
Exhibitions and Editions
Selected Performances and Screenings
Commissions and Awards
Discography
https://peoplelikeus.org/2014/artist-statement-for-people-like-us/
Recording of Off The Page 2012 – Collateral Damage
Vicki Bennett, Chris Cutler, Scanner, Blackest Ever Black label head Kiran Sande and The Wire‘s Tony Herrington discuss the impact of digital technology on music making and consumption.
Download or listen here 1:07:36
Vicki Bennett’s Essay in The Wire
The Wire and Sound And Music‘s Off The Page festival took place 24–26 February at The Playhouse Theatre in Whitstable.
People Like Us interview in The Wire about radio
The collage artist also known as People Like Us talks about her beginnings in experimental radio broadcasting in the second instalment of The Wire’s oral histories series.
Vicki Bennett’s People Like Us began life as a three hour radio show on Brighton’s Festival Radio in 1990 called Gobstopper. She went on to release around 20 solo albums based on her radio sound collages, but after a decade working primarily with sound, has increasingly worked with film and images. She has recently produced collage and split screen work, including 2013’s touring film and performance piece Notations, a film used as a score for improvising musicians.
An advocate of open digital distribution, Bennett’s entire back catalogue is available for download via UbuWeb, and she is also the host of long-running radio show DO or DIY on WFMU. She has collaborated extensively with Ergo Phizmiz, Negativland’s Don Joyce, Wobbly and Kenneth Goldsmith, and many others.
Listen to the interview here:
http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/in-conversation/oral-histories_vicki-bennett
Or download the file as an mp3:
http://www.thewire.co.uk/download//2014/05/02/The_Wire_Oral_Histories_-_Vicki_Bennett_aka_People_Like_Us_.mp3
GWILLY EDMONDEZ Sings Chart Sweep on WFMU
GWILLY EDMONDEZ Sings Chart Sweep Part 1 and 2
on DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU
Monday 20 January 2014 @7pm-8pm NY Time (that’s midnight on Monday evening UK)
Listen http://wfmu.org & broadcasting at 91.1 fm New York, at 90.1 fm in Hudson Valley
Update: Download it here:
Listen http://wfmu.org & broadcasting at 91.1 fm New York, at 90.1 fm in Hudson Valley
Update: Download it here:
Listeners to DO or DIY and WFMU will be familiar with the cut up of two decades of Number 1 hits “Chart Sweep” and also the noise blatherer Gwilly Edmondez. Well now, oh joy, these two wonderful projects combine for one hour, and we bring you Gwilly singing Chart Sweep, in full on WFMU!
Gwilly Edmondez performs solo and in small groups using voice, guitar, pocket samplers, turntables and dictaphones. Music is mostly made up on the spot and usually seeks to align itself with idiomatic contexts rather than avoiding them. Gwilly has spent a lot of time resisting coherence and continuity, to the point where a wilful anti-professionalism can be regarded as his music’s defining characteristic.
http://ubu.com/sound/edmondez.html
Chart Sweep
http://ubu.com/sound/chartsweep.html
http://www.djfood.org/djfood/chart-sweep-time-sweep
Playlists and archives for DO or DIY on WFMU
http://wfmu.org/peoplelikeus
Radio Web MACBA – Cumulative Tails
Radio Web MACBA have published a new radio mix and pdf from Vicki Bennett: INTERRUPTIONS #15. Cumulative Tails
Read the pdf and listen/download the mp3 here:
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/vicki-bennett-cumulative-tails-/capsula
Cumulative Tails is a pun upon the ‘cumulative tale’, where each part of a story relates to that which just preceded and followed it. This radio mix, curated by Vicki Bennett, has been created using that process – a succession of audio tracks picked in conceptual relation only to that which was previously played.
Music For Films radio show on basicfm
RADIO SHOW
Music For Films with People Like Us
5pm-9pm (UK time), Thursday 5th September 2013
Online at basic.fm
http://www.basic.fm/radio/
If you missed the show you can download it here afterwards.
Here is the playlist as a pdf.
Music For The Fire now online at UbuWeb
The 2010 collaboration between People Like Us & Wobbly which became the CD “Music For The Fire” is now available for mp3 download at UbuWeb.
The fruit of many years of work, this album began as People Like Us & Wobbly collected and collaged their way through various depictions of misfired communications and heartbreak sourced from popular culture for a series of live improvisations. Music For The Fire is a plunderphonic concept album depicting the lifespan of a relationship, as told through samples of hundreds of different songs and voices who had no idea they were all telling the same story until they were all spliced together.
http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_fire.html
It is still available for purchase in CD and FLAC form at Illegal Art.
The Keystone Cut Ups now digital audio download
The audio from our new DVD “The Keystone Cut Ups” is now available in audio form as an album, in digital audio form! You can download at our label Illegal Art’s site, and good news is they have a “pay what you want” policy – from 0$ to XXXXXX$$$$$$!
Download now: http://illegal-art.net/shop#release131
Simply add to basket, scroll to the mp3 option and then select the amount you’d like to pay. There is also the option of getting the higher quality FLAC file.
3 New Releases! DVD! 7 inch! Digital Download!
PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ BRING YOU…
THE KEYSTONE CUT UPS DVD / MOON MAGIC 7″ / THE KEYSTONE CUT UPS DIGITAL DOWNLOAD
DVD and Digital Download Release Date: 31 October 2012
7 inch Release Date: 13 November 2012
Label: Illegal Art IA131 illegalart.net
https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/merch/the-keystone-cut-ups-dvd
We’re very pleased to announce the release on Illegal Art of a DVD, 7″ single and digital audio album!
When People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz premiered The Keystone Cut Ups at the Berwick Film and Media Art Festival in 2010, it was met with praise and wonder. Invoking a dreamlike atmosphere from the pairing of surrealist avant-garde cinema and silent-era comedy films with the quirky, yet emotionally resonating soundtrack carved out a unique sector of musical entertainment. This project stands tall as a statement against an industry that often flounders in its own creative bankruptcy.
Until now, this experience has only been available to those fortunate enough to see it performed live. But this October, people all over the world can see what all the hype is about for themselves when Illegal Art releases The Keystone Cut Ups on DVD, as well as just the musical portion as a digital download and as a 7′ single.
The festival commissioned the project in July of 2010 as an attempt to achieve something that would excite audiences in ways they were never expecting. People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz composed forty-five minutes of music that is simultaneously whimsical and poignant. Once the soundtrack was in place, visuals were assembled around the audio in order to create a stimulating assault on the mind that evokes a sense of the surreal and fantastical.
Tracklist:
1. Orchestra 2. Hats 3. Statues 4. Thelma Todd 5. Machines
6. Aquopalypse 7. Chess 8. Magic 9. Spinning 10. Moon
The Keystone Cut Ups will play all regions, worldwide.
MOON MAGIC 7″ SINGLE by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz
Available to purchase from 25 October 2012
Actual release date: 13 November 2012
Illegal Art IA702 http://www.illegalart.net
“Moon” and “Magic” is a AA side 7 inch single, also on the Illegal Art label. Both tracks are taken from The Keystone Cut Ups DVD.
DOWNLOAD THE KEYSTONE CUT UPS AUDIO IN MP3 OR FLAC FORM
From the Illegal Art Shop
http://illegal-art.net/shop#release131
With this release, Illegal Art continues to embrace a pay-what-you-want business model for high-quality downloads. All label releases over the last five years have been issued (or reissued) under a the flexible payment system. People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz also have a history of offering free downloads of entire projects, both new and old.
REVIEWS so far
“Welcome Abroad” – People Like Us (Illegal Art 2011)
“Welcome Abroad” by People Like Us
Release date: 24 May 2011
Illegal Art IA124 http://www.illegalart.net
UK – price including P&P: $11.00
EUROPE – price including P&P: $12.00
ELSEWHERE – price including P&P: $13.00
“Welcome Abroad is the soundtrack to a dream – overlaying a cabaret with the circus, a music hall with the radio, a nightclub with the movies. Finely tuned sounds from the collective unconscious, fitted together with care and clarity and skill, producing a hallucinatory landscape that shifts and slides, shimmering with each new sample. Julie Andrews duets with Jim Morrison? Damn.” –Steinski
Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland’s airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. Volcanically marooned in Baltimore and NYC, Bennett utilized some of her “free” time to work on the album and even gained audio contributions from fellow experimental musicians Jason Willett (of Half Japanese) and M.C. Schmidt (of Matmos) via her extended stay.
Taking a glance at just a few tracks from Welcome Abroad, songs from The Beatles, Ennio Morricone, Danny Kaye, Bob Dylan, Rod McKuen, Elton John, Gene Pitney, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, John Denver, Julie London, and Queen are all amalgamated. While recent mashup culture often centers on the instant gratification of seamlessly juxtaposing hooks, People Like Us tracks transform the source material into collages that are equal parts dissonance and pleasure, making artful commentaries on our culture and Bennett’s own existential amusement within such a wondrous world.
With the release of Welcome Abroad, lllegal Art continues to embrace a pay-what-you-want business model for high-quality downloads. All label releases over the last five years have been issued (or reissued) under a the flexible payment system. People Like Us also have a history of offering free downloads of entire projects, both new and old. Vicki Bennett is such a firm endorser of the gift economy that she is the top downloaded audio artist on UbuWeb.
Welcome Abroad by People Like Us
“Welcome Abroad” by People Like Us
Release date: 24 May 2011
Illegal Art IA124 http://www.illegalart.net
UK – price including P&P: $11.00
EUROPE – price including P&P: $12.00
ELSEWHERE – price including P&P: $13.00
Download as mp3s, FLAC, plus some video downloads
“Welcome Abroad is the soundtrack to a dream – overlaying a cabaret with the circus, a music hall with the radio, a nightclub with the movies. Finely tuned sounds from the collective unconscious, fitted together with care and clarity and skill, producing a hallucinatory landscape that shifts and slides, shimmering with each new sample. Julie Andrews duets with Jim Morrison? Damn.” –Steinski
Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland’s airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. Volcanically marooned in Baltimore and NYC, Bennett utilized some of her “free” time to work on the album and even gained audio contributions from fellow experimental musicians Jason Willett (of Half Japanese) and M.C. Schmidt (of Matmos) via her extended stay.
Taking a glance at just a few tracks from Welcome Abroad, songs from The Beatles, Ennio Morricone, Danny Kaye, Bob Dylan, Rod McKuen, Elton John, Gene Pitney, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, John Denver, Julie London, and Queen are all amalgamated. While recent mashup culture often centers on the instant gratification of seamlessly juxtaposing hooks, People Like Us tracks transform the source material into collages that are equal parts dissonance and pleasure, making artful commentaries on our culture and Bennett’s own existential amusement within such a wondrous world.
Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett has been an influential figure in the field of audiovisual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio.
People Like Us believe in open access to archives for creative use, and have made work using footage from the Prelinger Archives, The Internet Archive, and A/V Geeks. In 2006 she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. People Like Us have previously shown work at Tate Modern, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. The ongoing sound art radio show ‘DO or DIY’ on WFMU has had over three quarters of a million hits since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.
With the release of Welcome Abroad, Illegal Art continues to embrace a pay-what-you-want business model for high-quality downloads. All label releases over the last five years have been issued (or reissued) under a the flexible payment system. People Like Us also have a history of offering free downloads of entire projects, both new and old. Vicki Bennett is such a firm endorser of the gift economy that she is the top downloaded audio artist on UbuWeb.
Press Quotes:
“… a freeform, unfolding imaginary landscape that is liberally peppered with slapstick.” – Phil England, The Wire
“Bennett has continued to impress us with her technical ability and her wonderful sense of the ridiculous.” – Olli Siebelt, BBC
“… beautiful, compelling, funny, crazy stuff. I listen to [People Like Us] while sitting at my drawing board.” – Matt Groening
“… it is that delirious adventure to tune in Disney cartoons while we administered a strong dose of amphetamines, LSD, and any other lysergic cocktail.” – J. Carlos Vellamueva, Rolling Stone (Mexico)
“… after prolonged exposure to the alchemical work of Vicki Bennett, we see and hear our own everyday world as one big joke which is already cut to pieces. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.” – Drew Daniel, Matmos
“… warped-out easy easy-listening goddess and sample abuser extraordinaire.” – Ben Willmott, NME
“Bennett has taken Eisenstein’s montage collisions and refashioned them as bumper cars at a seaside carnival.” – Jim Supanick, Film Society of Lincoln Center
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