Welcome to the only official site for People Like Us and Vicki Bennett
This is the rehearsal for our Notations performance at WFMU’s Monty Hall in Jersey City on 13 Sept 2014.
Thank you Martin and Jason for one of the best versions of Notations yet. And thank you WFMU for being the best place to play in the world.
More about Notations here: peoplelikeus.org/2013/notations/
(video edited on the Bolt Bus)
Stop press: here are films documenting the full performances at High Zero:
People Like Us at High Zero Festival in Baltimore on 19 and 20 September, 2014
Friday 19 September is a night of improvisation, in which People Like Us performs two sets with other improvisers, the first time Vicki has done improvisation of this type in more than 10 years.
Doors open 7.30pm, performances begin at 8.30pm
Group One:
Jack Wright (saxophone)
Dafne Vicente-Sandoval (bassoon)
Paul Neidhardt (percussion, friction)
M.C. Schmidt (store-bought electronics)
Charles Dube (electronics)
Group Two:
John Kilduff (multitasking, live art)
Vicki Bennett (found footage sample collage)
Bob Wagner (percussion, friction)
Group Three:
LaDonna Smith (violin)
Paul Neidhardt (percussion, friction)
Harry Walker (electric bass)
Michael Fischer (saxophone)
Group Four:
JD Zazie (turntables, CDJ, mixer, found sounds)
Charlotte Hug (viola, voice)
Jenny Gräf (electronics, guitar)
Stewart Mostofsky (electronics)
Vicki Bennett (found footage sample collage)
Notations at the Saturday Matinee, on 20 September 2014 at The Theatre Project, 45 W Preston St, Baltimore.
Doors open Noon, performances at 1pm.
This time around, the performers to this live score are:
Bob Wagner (drums)
LaDonna Smith (violin)
Jenny Gräf (electronics, guitar)
“Notations” is a film by Vicki Bennett for live performance by improvising musicians and artists. It has been created using collected and edited found footage from hundreds of different films, where the content conceptually or literally portrays different kinds of ‘instructions’ and content that can then be interpreted by musicians and artists with unique audio accompaniments. Notations contains edits of the movies and sounds from the source films, separated into ‘sketches’ or stories that segue into one another, and it exists with a list of instructions (score) on how artist(s) working with this choose to work with these particular elements.
People Like Us, M.C.Schmidt (Matmos) and Jason Willett will perform at WFMU‘s own performance space at Monty Hall, New Jersey on 13 Sept 2014 at 8pm. Tickets must be bought in advance to ensure entry:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/819123 – there should be some tickets on the door but you have been warned since they are selling well and it’s a small venue.
We’ve not decided the order of the evening but it will include People Like Us with Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another), and then a joint improv performance by all three artists to Notations.
Our paperback/pdf book The Fundamental Questions (Gregor Weichbrodt/Vicki Bennett) was read by a number of poets at the event Xing The Line on 19 August 2014 at The Apple Tree, Clerkenwell, London. We filmed the mass reading – here it is:
“The Fundamental Questions” is now also available in full for free as a pdf.
We are exhibiting a rare stand-alone version of our (usually live performance) Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Sheffield Doc/Fest, 7-12 June 2014. The 40-minute musical movie is on a giant screen at Millennium Gallery from 10.00-17.00, and in the evening from 18.00-22.00 in Millennium Gallery.
Sheffield Doc/Fest: http://sheffdocfest.com/articles/167-brand-new-for-2014-the-interactive-exhibition
Millennium Gallery: http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/millennium-gallery/exhibitions/current/doc-fest-14
“Favourite new work at the festival so far; would happily have watched it 2+ times straight through.” – Tom Vincent (co-director, Bradford International Film Festival), on twitter
This coming Monday 26th May will be the last DO or DIY of the season, and we are taking the summer schedule off (our own decision) – join us on the show’s playlist/comments board for the last show here at 7pm NY Time (midnight UK), and listen in at http://wfmu.org
People Like Us will perform Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) and give an artist talk at meta.morf / Here To Go Symposium in Trondheim, Norway at the end of May 2014.
Concert: 30 May 2014
Venue: Dokkhuset
Dokkparken 4, Trondheim, 7014 Norway
http://metamorf.no/?p=604
Conference: 31 May 2014
10:00 – 17:00 @ Dokkhuset
http://metamorf.no/?p=602
Andrew Sharpley – “Black Ships”
Monday 19 May 2014, 7pm
on DO or DIY with People Like Us
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/pl
Listen online live at 7pm NY Time http://wfmu.org
This broadcast is a based on a series of translations and re-translations of a text in a not-very-good telephone translation app, going backwards and forwards between Japanese and Portuguese and at each stage rendering the result into english – kind of like Chinese Whispers, except not Chinese. Whats starts out as a tongue twister over the course of 30 re-translations (25 of which are used in the broadcast) ends up as something that sounds like a deranged terrorist, manifesto, talking of bomb blasts and prophets and visas and pain and country.
These short texts, read by my daughter Lia, are set against a backdrop of shifting electronic patterns and acoustic piano that mutates gradually over time as the texts themselves do.
The title, Black Ships (in Japanese, 黒船, kurofune, Edo Period term) was the name given to Western ships arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries.
In 1543 Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking Goa to Nagasaki. The large ships engaged in this trade had the hull painted black with pitch, and the term came to represent all western vessels. A modern day equivalent for the surprise and confusion the presence of these ships caused, would perhaps be someone in a modern city apartment trying to go to sleep with 4 big black flying saucers hovering outside their window…
With a nod of recognition to the WFMU presenter and exponent of ‘ uncreative writing’ – of which this is an example – I am dedicating it to Mr Kenneth Goldsmith.
– Andrew Sharpley, 16 May, 2014.
People Like Us will return to Hamburg’s Hoerbar for the first time in many years to perform Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) on 9th May 2014.
Hoerbar, Brigittenstr. 5, Hamburg
http://www.hoerbar-ev.de/?Kommende_Konzerte_6
Shutter
Shutter is a new audio-visual exhibition by film and sound collagist Vicki Bennett that enables us to peer into a parallel cinematic world that exists between the edits, when we are not looking at the screen. http://www.leeds-artexhibitions.co.uk/?p=1180
The exhibition consists of three a/v video works (one projected and two on video monitors) and nine prints. There is also an edition of 20 of two of these prints.
“The Big Sleep” [2014] Video (19 mins, 12 secs)
Sleep deficient actors drift in and out of consciousness.
“Blink” [2014] Video (1 hour, 35 mins, 39 secs)
Every frame missed while watching A Nightmare on Elm Street.
“Dreaming” [2011] Video (4 mins, 16 secs)
Nine 12×12 inch B/W and Colour Giclee Prints
VICKI BENNETT “SHUTTER”
“Shutter” is a new audio-visual exhibition that enables us to peer into a parallel cinematic world that exists between the edits, when we are not looking at the screen.
Actors aren’t seen to rest a lot in films, considering people on average sleep 8 hours a day. More often than not, feature films contain a stream of attention-grabbing imagery and noise, and if the mood does slow down there is still dialogue, music and other distractions.
In feature films we don’t see the real-time flow of everyday life, we don’t see the actors queuing, watching TV, reading a book, sleeping. Nor do we witness the mundane – we see the James Bond car chase but no stopping off to eat a panini. Reality can be brought back into film by revealing actors in their normal, uneventful moments. Actors need to sleep as well. Where do they go after a film has ended? What do we miss when we blink while watching a movie? What is it really like on the other side of the screen? This exhibition addresses these subjects and attempts to take us to these places.
2 editions of 20 (below) – purchase from our shop
Bio
Since 1991 Vicki Bennett has been working across the field of audio-visual collage, and is recognized 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 have previously shown work at Tate Modern, The Barbican, Centro de Cultura Digital, Maxxi and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. In 2006 Vicki was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. 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. https://peoplelikeus.org/category/biography/
Documentation – Setting up and Preview night
Graham Duff presents Dreamhouse Girls
on DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU
Monday 17 March 2014 @7pm-8pm NY Time
(that’s 11pm on Monday evening UK at the moment because US have already changed to daylight savings time whereas many of us elsewhere haven’t!)
Listen http://wfmu.org & broadcasting at 91.1 fm New York, at 90.1 fm in Hudson Valley
Tonight’s live playlist is now set up: http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/54851
Graham is an actor, producer and screenwriter. He created the TV comedy shows ‘Ideal’, ’Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible’ and ‘Hebburn’. For radio he’s written the long running sci-fi sit-com ‘Nebulous’ and the comedy drama ‘Stereonation’. As a script editor, he’s edited seven series of Radio 4’s Sony award winning ‘Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show’ as well as the recent Alan Partridge movie ‘Alpha Papa’. He’s also a part time DJ and full time music obsessive. http://www.grahamduff.co.uk
People Like Us will perform Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at L’Embobineuse, Marseille on Saturday March 16th 2014.
https://www.yesgolive.com/lembobineuse/consequences-people-like-us-pepe
