Welcome to the only official site for People Like Us and Vicki Bennett
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, amongst others, Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, The Barbican, Centro de Cultura Digital, Maxxi and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. She has an ongoing sound art radio show 'DO or DIY' on WFMU. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.
Nothing Can Turn Into A Void – a documentary film about People Like Us has been screening in cinemas and festivals since Autumn 2015. Currently, Vicki is focussing on expanding both audio and moving image work for a multiscreen and multi-speakered environment with Recombinant Media Labs, with a new 10 screen work "Gone, Gone Beyond" and there will be a new People Like Us live performance "The Mirror" premiering at FACT, Liverpool in Spring 2018.
People Like Us will take over the airwaves for an hour from 3.30pm-4.30pm (UK time) on Resonance FM on Saturday 28 April 2018 on the Splice Festival Festival Radio Show. This is to coincide with our performance at Splice Festival a couple of weeks after.
We will be playing some new work, talking about The Mirror and other current and future projects, including previewing our collaboration with Hearty White. You can listen to Resonance on air and on the internet at 104.4 FM to central London, DAB to Greater London, nationally on Radioplayer and live streamed to the rest of the world.
People Like Us will be doing a fill-in slot for Station Manager Ken on WFMU on Wednesday 27 December 2017 from 9-Noon NY Time (2pm UK). Gwilly Edmondez will be joining Vicki to sing some selections from the LP box set Now That’s What I Call Music. Ergo Phizmiz PLC will also be popping in to sing a handful of songs. Tune in at http://wfmu.org – live playlist and comments here.
People Like Us will be on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb on Friday 8 December 2017 talking about scrolling culture (and google minds!) in relation to the creative process and The Fundamental Questions book, playing a specially made 3 minute group reading made from this.
Here’s the piece that we made : I Am A Poet (from The Fundamental Questions)
Group reading features: Jaap Blonk, Dylan Nyoukis, Leo Chadburn, Mark Gergis, Chris T, Bryce Kretschmann, Medaya Ocher, John Aage Nilsen, Abbie Minard, Colleen Lindsay, Simon Faulkner, Scott Williams, Falco Carey, Hearty White, Kurt Gottshalk, Rebecca Schnell, Roslyn Sargeant, Michael Newman, Steven Ball, Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee, Nancy Novotny, MC Schmidt, Adrian Testcard, The Weatherman, Annabel McCourt, HK Kahng, Austin Rich, Tim Maloney, Matthew Curry, Drew Daniel, Alma, Silas and Peter Jaeger, Casper Carey, Paul Abbott, Tom Comitta, Will Edmondes, Catherine Backhouse, Krys O, Elkka Nyoukis, Miller Sargeant, Jhh Löwengard, Mike Lupica, Dan Solenoid, Greg Scharpen, Nick The Bard, Jon Leidecker, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Brancois Bonnet, Andie Brown, Ada Graham-Löwengard, Duncan Harrison, Gregor Weichbrodt and Vicki Bennett.
People Like Us will be interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Archive On 4 on Saturday 28 October 2017 at 8pm talking about editing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08qxd5b
People Like Us (Vicki) and Wobbly (Jon Leidecker) paid an impromptu visit to KALX in Berkeley on 3 October 2017 to go on Carnacki‘s radio show. Here is the 3 hour conversation about Recombinant Festival, immersive media, collaborations, radio and vaporwave.
Under the name “People Like Us,” artist Vicki Bennett has been making work available via CD, DVD and vinyl releases, radio broadcasts, concert appearances, gallery exhibits and online streaming and distribution for 25 years. Since her first publication in 1992, Bennett has developed an immediately recognisable aesthetic repurposing pre-existing footage to craft audio and video collages with an equally dark and witty take on popular culture. She sees sampling and appropriation as folk art sourced from the palette of contemporary media and technology, with all of the sharing and cross-referencing incumbent to a populist form. Embedded in her work is the premise that all is interconnected and that claiming ownership of an “original” or isolated concept is both preposterous and redundant.
