Author: Vicki

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Critical Conversation Series

Paul Hamlyn Foundation, ArtWorks NorthEast: Developing Practice in Participatory Settings
Critical Conversation Series
Venue: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Date: 8th August 2012 7:00 to 9:00pm
Hosts: The Pixel Palace
Chair: Dominic Smith
Speaker: Vicki Bennett

http://www.thepixelpalace.org/events/critical-conversation-with-vicki-bennett

Background Cultural organisations in the North East of England have a strong record of working with artists to develop participatory arts projects in different settings. As part of a national arts research project funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and designed to facilitate new dialogues around and understandings of participatory arts practice, the University of Sunderland is working with a consortium of regional partners (ArtWorks North East)* to develop a clearer understanding of what makes for good participatory practice. The overarching aim is to establish an innovative and sustainable cross disciplinary approach to creating excellent practice in participatory leadership.

Critical conversations: dialogues around the practice of arts in participatory settings
As part of this, ArtWorks North East is together hosting a series of ‘critical conversations’ over the next 12 months involving artists, participants, host groups and other collaborators from a variety of art forms. We are inviting different people responsible for creating and delivering participatory work to reflect on their practice, and to open that practice up to discussion by others. Each conversation will take place in an open learning atmosphere in which artists/presenters will share their practice with others and where people feel able to ask challenging questions about that practice in appropriate ways.
The Pixel Palace is delivering one of these events on behalf of the University of Sunderland. This event will focus on Participation in Creative Digital Media and online environments. We would like to discuss the different models of practice which exist and seek your views on issues of quality, process and experience. We hope that the opportunity to reflect on practice will be beneficial for those attending as well as informing this research project.

To book a place please email info@thepixelpalace.org

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More DO or DIY podcasts on their way

We may be taking some time off of the regular WFMU schedule, but this doesn’t mean you go without DO or DIY. We were busy earlier this year with Radio Boredcast, which included a bunch of DO or DIY and/with People Like Us radio shows. And we’ve gathered them together to be delivered weekly as part of our DO or DIY podcast on WFMU.
Over the coming weeks you will hear shows called Earworms (about those songs that get stuck in your head), 1234 (about counting and ordering of information in music and sound art), Blather (a journey through noises the mouth makes in sound art, ethnopoetics, music, comedy and beyond), Boring (where friends interviewed their children about all things boring!), Broken Music (about the manipulation of the sound source, cutting up, breaking and bending things out of shape), and a Spring Equinox show (!!)…

To subscribe go to http://wfmu.org/podcast and scroll to “Do or DIY with People Like Us”. If you are already subscribed then the episodes will arrive when you next open iTunes.

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People Like Us featured in two recent Radio Web MACBA podcasts

People Like Us recently featured in two different Radio Web MACBA Podcasts/PDFs…

Firstly, Jon Leidecker’s ongoing Variations series all about sampling, which you can find here:
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/variations7_jon_leidecker/capsula

Secondly, Kenneth Goldsmith’s interview/lecture Memorabilia. Collecting Sounds With… all about his music collection, which you can find here:
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia_kenneth_goldsmith/capsula

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Cutting Across Media book and “Mixtape” by People Like Us

CUTTING ACROSS MEDIA by Kembrew McLeod & Rudolf Kuenzli

We highly recommend this book, which Vicki Bennett has written the back of book blurb for. More info about it here.

Download at UbuWeb http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_collarge.html

Accompanying the book is a “mixtape” (in digital form!) of our favourite sample or sampled music. Take an epic six hour survey of audio collage with People Like Us’ Collarge, a mixtape commissioned for Kembrew McLeod’s co-edited Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionalist Collage, and Intellectual Property Law, which serves as a companion volume to Creative License. http://creativelicense.info/mixtape.php

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Radio Boredcast Now Archived At WFMU!


We are very pleased to inform you that Radio Boredcast has now been archived in its entirety at WFMU.

Given that Radio Boredcast is a 744-hour online radio project, we consider today (20 June), The Longest Day, a most appropriate time to make this announcement. Curated by Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) with AV Festival, Radio Boredcast responds to our ambiguous relationship with time – do we have too much or not enough? – celebrating the detail, complexity and depth of experience lost through our obsession with speed. BASIC.fm first hosted the project through the duration of AV Festival (1-31 March 2012) and now this unique and colossal archive is accessible for “Listen on Demand” at freeform radio station WFMU.

http://wfmu.org/playlists/zz

An impressive list of participants were invited to create new radio shows, audio works and mixes in response to the AV Festival theme “As Slow As Possible” and thematic playlists and contextual programming surround these creations.

The full list of participants are: Carl Stone, Pseu Braun & Alex Orlov, Touch, Rob Weisberg, Nicolas Collins, Andrew Lahman, Chris & Cosey, Jonathan Dean and Transmuteo, Cheese Snob Wendy, Kevin Nutt, Tony Coulter, Daniel Menche, Scott Williams, John Wynne, Chris Watson, Jem Finer and Longplayer, Tim Maloney, Ergo Phizmiz, Matmos, Dave Soldier, Charlie and Busy Doing Nothing, Andrew Sharpley, Nancy O Graham, Gwilly Edmondez, Anna Ramos & Roc Jiménez De Cisneros, Doug Horne, Irene Moon, David Suisman, Radio Web MACBA, Mark Gergis and Porest, Jez Riley French, Don Joyce, Carlo Patrao and Zepelim, Dorian Jones, Jason Willett, Zach Layton, Primate Arena with Alex Drool and Eran Sachs, David Toop, Dylan Nyoukis, Jared Blum and GiganteSound, Ed Pinsent, Adrian Philips aka Mr Rotorvator, Axel Stockburger, Craig Dworkin, Felix Kubin, People Like Us, Language Removal Services, Daniela Cascella, John Levack Drever, Joel Eaton, Clay Pigeon, Gudrun Gut, Charles Powne, Carl Abrahamsson, Andreas Bick and Silent Listening, Phantom Circuit, Patti Schmidt aka Wheelie Houdini, Leif Elggren, Ken Freedman, Erik Bünger, Douglas Benford, Christof Migone, BJNilsen, Andy Baio, Adam Thomas aka Preslav Literary School, Caroline Bergvall, Ken’s Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, Tapeworm, Brent Clough and The Night Air, Ilan Volkov, Nat Roe, Steven Ball, X41, The Long Now Foundation, Sharon Gal, Michael Ruby, Jonathan Leidecker, DJ/rupture, Gordon Monahan, Michael Cumella aka MAC, Lloyd Dunn and nula, DDDJJJ666, and Kenneth Goldsmith.. Thematic playlists run throughout from “Acconci” to “Zzz…” programmed by Vicki Bennett.
This has been a great project to curate and create, and although the theme is Slowness, we urge you to get over there now and have a listen!

Radio Boredcast wfmu.org/playlists/zz
Co-commissioned by AV Festival avfestival.co.uk and BASIC.fm basic.fm
Background on Radio Boredcast peoplelikeus.org/boredcast.html
WFMU wfmu.org/about.shtml

Vicki’s blog entry on the AV Festival site avfestival.co.uk/blog/2012/02/19/radio-boredcast-presents

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THE ZONE… A Feature Length Film by Vicki Bennett

Update (2013) This film received a take down order from Mosfilm who represent Tarkovsky’s estate, so unfortunately you cannot see it at this point in time.  Read more about this.

UPDATE (2017) – Turns out the Mosfilm do NOT own Tarkovsky films, nor have they ever!!!   We were not alone in receiving take down orders from them, they’d been sending them to many people for years.  We were informed of this by Curzon who DO own them, at least now.  The Zone is up here:

UPDATE HERE: https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/vicki-bennett-speaks-to-emily-bick-people-like-us
WATCH HERE: https://vimeo.com/44258244

THE ZONE
This first feature-length film by Vicki Bennett tells one story of two journeys to the promised land, the world where dreams can be made real and reality is like a dream. The relationship between narratives holds surprising coincidences and surreal tangents and departures as they both dance their (not so) merry dance to their shangri-la. The films sit side by side, staying loyal to the linear narrative, but editing the longer film to the length of the shorter. The film was structured so that the crossover point from monotone to colour in imagery occur at the same stage. This method of story telling is challenging, sometimes jarring, but one’s patience is paid off with delightful harmonies and synchronicities both in images and narrative occurring far more than either pure chance would dictate or the imagination construct. This film is inspired by the Chance Operations of John Cage, Cut-Up techniques of Gysin/Burroughs and Kurt Schwitters, and single shot/durational films (Andy Warhol, James Benning).

“Happiness for everybody! . . . Free! As much as you want! . . . Everybody come here! . . . There’s enough for everybody! . . . Nobody will leave unsatisfied! . . . Free! . . . Happiness! . . . Free!” – from Roadside Picnic (the novel that Stalker is loosely based on)

THE ZONE by VICKI BENNETT [2012] Trailer from Vicki WFMU on Vimeo.

Press photos here
Interview about The Zone by Alastair Cameron (Arnolfini, Bristol)
Review in The Wire (January 2013)

Dual screen movie HD file
1440 x 576
97 min 55 sec
Created 2012

STILLS



Screenings:

Arnolfini, Bristol, 2012
Transmediale, Berlin 2013 – cancelled due to takedown order

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North By Southwest 63 – Arte Oído with Philip Jeck and Vicki Bennett on experimental music

In this week’s edition of ‘North By Southwest’, Nicolas Jackson attends experimental music and sound art festival Arte Oído, programmed by La Nota productions and held at Madrid’s CaixaForum cultural centre. There, he meets UK artists Philip Jeck and Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) who discuss their work and the meaning of the terms ‘experimental’ and ‘avant-garde’. We also hear about a 744-hour-long radio ‘boredcast’ and the virtues of ‘slow art’.

http://soundcloud.com/britishcouncil/north-by-southwest-arte-oido-experimental-music