Category: events

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The Wire 40: An Evening With People Like Us

THE WIRE 40: AN EVENING WITH PEOPLE LIKE US

Friday 1 July 2022 | The Cube, Bristol UK
Doors: 7pm / short films programme: 8pm
https://cubecinema.com/programme/event/the-wire-40-an-evening-with-people-like-us,12483/

A programme of film shorts by People Like Us
Q&A Vicki Bennett & Emily Bick (The Wire)
Live performance to a new film score by People Like Us with Gwilly Edmondez & Ergo Phizmiz

Review in Tough Sell Zine:

THE WIRE 40: An Evening with People Like Us
@The Cube Microplex (01/07)

Perhaps better known for her audio work, the opening night of The Wire’s 40th birthday celebrations focused on Vicki Bennett’s (aka People Like Us) films.

The evening started with an overview of the artist’s work including maximalist explosions of old industrial documentaries,  tongue in cheek pop culture mashups, and recent immersive experiences. For me the extracts of longer works didn’t work so well, never having enough time to fully get into what was going on, but many of the short films were brilliant – from the hilarious mashup of The Hills Are Alive from Sound of Music and This Is The End from Apocalypse Now (The Sound of the End of Music), to the really quite moving combination of depictions of the moon in early experimental and comedy films, with music by Ergo Phizmiz (Moon). What was surprising and delightful was the lack of any cynicism – throughout, Bennett celebrated films from commercials to classics, with an obvious love of the moving image, and the people who made them.

The night really started to come alive with the Q&A with Bennett. The way she talked about her work confirmed her genuine joy in working with existing material. ‘Films want to be friends,’ she replied to questions about how she got things to fit so well together. ‘You do one thing for a long time and magic happens.’

Crowning the evening was a new work, with live performance by Bennett, Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez. It fulfilled the promise teased in the earlier clips, and showed the excellence of Bennett’s work when allowed the space to stretch out, by turns joyous and strange and beguiling. It seemed almost like a celebration of her own career, with clips returning to repeated motifs from earlier work; corridors and cameras, doorways and dreams. As a final encapsulation of the magic Bennett talked of we saw a satanic ritual mixed with a Dadaist poetry exercise; art as a demonic summoning, drawing something from the ether and binding it to yourself.

For this evening Bennett has put together a programme of her rarely-seen short films from the current century. The films will be followed by a discussion between the artist and Wire Deputy Editor Emily Bick, and then the premiere live performance to a new specially-made film score by PLU by the trio of Bennett, Gwilly Edmondez and Ergo Phizmiz.

Emily Bick is Deputy Editor at The Wire magazine.

Gwilly Edmondez is a performer whose primary aesthetic is Wild Pop, active both solo and in numerous collaborations. As Gustav Thomas he is one half of the duo YEAH YOU with Elvin Brandhi. Originally from Wales, he is mostly based in the North East where he has been on the staff of the music department of Newcastle University since 2004.

Ergo Phizmiz is a composer, writer, collagist, radio playwright, opera designer and director, who has created a vast body of work across media since 2000. They are currently designing moving images for The Rake’s Progress at the Royal Academy of Music, and working on the opera Adapting Don Quixote as a PhD at the University of Bristol.

The Wire 40 @ The Cube is a weekend of events marking The Wire magazine’s 40th anniversary. Other Wire 40 events are happening in London, Brighton, Manchester, Glasgow and streaming online during the month of July. See The Wire for more details.

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Artist talk added to screening of Gone, Gone Beyond

May 25 2022 – 6:30 PM, Gray Area, San Francisco | Get Tickets

Join us for this special showing of Gone, Gone Beyond and go behind the screen with creator Vicki Bennett (People Join us for an Artist Talk followed by a special showing of Gone, Gone Beyond with creator Vicki Bennett (People Like Us)!

6:30PM Doors open | 7:00PM Presentation by Vicki Bennett | 8:00PM Screening of Gone, Gone Beyond

$10 Presentation only
$30 Presentation + screening

Proof of vaccination is required for all attendees over the age of 12 years old. Read more.

Using collage as a compositional tool opens up endless opportunities to experience results that are more than the sum of the parts, opening doors (and windows) to let light in from outside of our own limited and sometimes repetitive ways of thinking. Since 2016 Vicki Bennett has been creating “Gone, Gone Beyond” for RML CineChamber, an immersive 360 surround cinema environment, is now an hour long.

In this presentation Vicki tells us about her creative process, expanding her aesthetics from 2D to 3D to create audiovisual content which breaks the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what’s behind.

Gone, Gone Beyond

This special screening is part of a limited run showing of Gone, Gone Beyond, an immersive audio-visual spatial cinema work by People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett). This is Gone, Gone, Beyond‘s US premiere, following its European debut tour last fall with screenings at nyMusikk in Oslo, the Barbican in London, and more. See showtimes

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Gone, Gone Beyond in San Francisco!

We are very pleased to announce that Gone, Gone Beyond will be screening in it’s home town San Francisco in May 2022 at Gray Area. We say it’s the “home town” because although we live in London, the piece was originally commissioned by Recombinant Media Labs for CineChamber, the structure which we then built a replica of in 2021 and have existing in the UK.

TICKETS: https://grayarea.org/gonegonebeyond/

All press inquiries should go to Gray Area, and if you have questions for People Like Us or Gone, Gone Beyond you can directly ask us.

Gone, Gone Beyond will screen at 6.30pm and 8.30pm each night.
On the 25th there will be an artist talk followed by one screening – tickets can be bought combined or separately: https://grayarea.org/event/vicki-bennett/

SCREENING DATES:

12, 13, 14, 19, 20 & 21 May 2022 (two screenings per night)
—- these screenings will be introduced by Naut Humon, original commissioner of Gone, Gone Beyond and creator of the CineChamber that houses our work.
25, 26 & 27 May 2022 (two screenings per night)
—- we will be present for these screenings and therefore will introduce the the 26th/27th, and it will be an artist presentation on the 25th.

All screenings are at Gray Area, Grand Theater, 2665 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 | info@grayarea.org | 415.843.1423

Covid policy: Full vaccination (no booster) | Masks strongly encouraged but not required 

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Cover Versions group exhibition, Sunderland

A theatrical screening of The Mirror by People Like Us will be part of Cover Versions, a group exhibition in Sunderland, UK:

A Group Exhibition Curated by Anthony & Graham Dolphin
4 April – 1 May 2022
Abject Gallery, 27 Fawcett Street, Sunderland, SR1 1RE, UK
Preview:  1 April 18:00–22:00
Opening times:  Wednesday – Saturday 11:00–16:00

Cover Versions is a group show curated by brothers Anthony and Graham Dolphin exploring notions of the original and its copies, echoes, and mutations in art, film and music. An original artwork is often used as the starting point of new creative acts. It can be re-purposed, subverted and reclaimed by artists, musicians, and fans. The exhibition addresses concepts of ownership, fandom and audience, authenticity, and the economic and cultural values that site and shape them.

The exhibition features internationally acclaimed artists, musicians and film makers from the UK, the USA, Australia, Japan, and Austria with newly commissioned work alongside key examples of their established practice.

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MIND MAPS: The Art of Vicki Bennett – Solo Exhibition

Sheehan Gallery, Walla Walla, USA | 1 February – 8 April 2022 
Free and open to the public, located in Olin Hall on Whitman College campus.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday 12-5 PM, Saturday-Sunday 12-4 PM, or by appointment. whitman.edu/sheehan

This solo exhibition of Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us) follows a 30 year journey into immersive media, covering music, radio, text-based art and moving image.  Showcasing hundreds of hours of audiovisual collage, both solo and with collaborators. To coincide with the exhibition is a visit from the artist with a series of screenings, artist presentations and radio collaborations in March 2022 on site.

Thursday 3 March 2022
Film Screening of Nothing Can Turn into a Void with Q & A
Kimball Auditorium | 5.30 PM (note the change of time)

Friday 4 March 2022
Performance by Negativland + Sue-C | Theatrical Film Screening of The Mirror by People Like Us | + support
Young Ballroom | 7 PM

Saturday 5 March 2022
People Like Us & Negativland on the Radio (on the air, no public audience)
KWCW 90.5 | 8 – 10:30 PM Listen Live

Download the ProgrammeDownload
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Gone, Gone Beyond 360 Real-Space Immersive Cinema

“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 (Vicki Bennett), which breaks the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what’s behind.  

The initial work was commissioned by Naut Humon, the founder of immersive theatre project RML CineChamber, Gone, Gone Beyond is a 10 screen / 6 or 8 speaker piece, with seamless wrap around projection and surround sound where the audience sit inside. It comprises of movie and musical compositions, animated and sample-based/musique concrète collage juxtaposed with content filmed/recorded by the artist, all sewn together in a giant patchwork. Pull on a thread and watch whole new narratives expand and unravel all at once on a 360º palette. The project has been a work in progress since 2017, and showed for the first time in Autumn 2021 in feature length format.  

The work’s title and underlying concepts come from the Heart Sutra, a key Buddhist text, describing how all phenomena are empty in form yet ultimately interconnected. The last lines of the Heart Sutra say ‘gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā’, which means “gone, gone beyond, gone beyond that a bit more, and then beyond that a bit further”. This reflects perfectly the action of going beyond the frame to where there are no edges to the narrative – just emptiness.

In this 360º format, time and space becomes elasticated, with the use of collaged video furthering the reflection on how information comes to us as fragments and that nothing is fixed. A new narrative-thread is woven in the mind of each viewer every time the work is seen, limited only to that exact time and space – just as the Heart Sutra reminds us that the only constant is change, and everything is related with no fixed source.

The initial in-process tester movie screened in San Francisco in October 2017 at RML’s own Recombinant Festival at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. Since then the work has been in development, with a private screening event in April 2019 Goldsmiths SIML for potential partners. The work will screen at nyMusikk, Oslo; SPILL Festival, Ipswich; Attenborough Centre (ACCA), Brighton; and London Barbican, in Autumn 2021. Version 2 of GGB screened in San Francisco’s Gray Area in May 2022 to great critical acclaim.

PAST:

SAN FRANCISCO Gray Area
12-27 May 2022 https://grayarea.org/gonegonebeyond/

OSLO Black Box Teater present KinoKammer with nyMusikk
13-16 October 2021 https://blackbox.no/en/e5115e56-702e-41a2-badb-cb21d1626082/

IPSWICH DanceEast as part of SPILL FESTIVAL
28-30 October 2021 https://www.danceeast.co.uk/performances/gone-gone-beyond-au21/

BRIGHTON Attenborough Centre (ACCA)
4-6 November 2021 https://www.attenboroughcentre.com/events/4028/gone-gone-beyond/

LONDON Barbican Centre
10-13 November 2021 https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/people-like-us-gone-gone-beyond

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The Wire: Music By Any Means at Somerset House

A series of three talks programmed by The Wire magazine looking at different strategies and systems for making music and organising sound. 

Wed 20 October 2021 | 18.45 – 20.30 | In person £8
Lancaster Rooms, New Wing & Online
An in person event from Somerset House. If you are unable to join us on the evening, a recording will be archived and available to view via a ticketed link. 

https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/vicki-bennett-opening-doors

This in person event will also be streamed live from Somerset House. If you are unable to join us on the evening, a recording will be archived and available to view via a ticketed link.  Music By Any Means has been designed to show how anything can become music, from objects to actions, archives to rituals, and how anyone can make it, regardless of any previous musical experience or ability. In the process of demystifying the processes of sound organisation and music making, the series will illuminate other ways of being in the world through sound, bypassing existing orthodoxies to enable and empower new creative activity.  
 
The talks, which will include demonstrations and performances, will be presented by O YAMA O (Rie Nakajima and Keiko Yamamoto), People Like Us (Vicki Bennett), and Elaine Mitchener; all artists who use aspects of film, theatre, performance, visual art and other practices to inform and develop new and distinctive approaches to making music and organising sound.  Music By Any Means will be available to audiences both onsite and online, with each event broadcast live from Somerset House Studios. 

Vicki Bennett explores the processes of making audiovisual content, working with archives and found footage.

Using collage as a compositional tool opens up endless opportunities to create and experience results that are more than the sum of their parts, opening doors (and windows) to let light in and move beyond limited and repetitive ways of creative thinking.  

In this talk, Vicki Bennett discusses and demonstrates her creative process making audio-visual content, working with archives and found footage, showing how she sources and organises this material into finished works which break the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what’s behind. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session.