PLU interview
DO or DIY chart in The Wire
People Like Us 4-page interview in The Wire magazine
Documentation of the People Like Us Retrospective at alt.gallery
Documentation of the People Like Us Retrospective at alt.gallery
alt.gallery (entry via alt.vinyl) 61/62 Thornton Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4AW.
http://www.altgallery.org/
16 May-12 July 2008
alt.gallery is pleased to announce the first retrospective exhibition of work by People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett).
ARTIST INFO
For the past seventeen years British artist Vicki Bennett has been an influential figure in the field of audio visual 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. The exhibition will focus on the concept of collage, showing an edited selection of her work, including twenty album releases, numerous singles and remixes, live sets, seven films and over a hundred and fifty radio shows. 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 Center 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” hits since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.
MEMORY STICKS
Every week during the exhibition a different collection of special downloads from the People Like Us archive will be available from the gallery, bring your memory stick along for a free take away!
ESSAY BY DR DREW DANIEL
A specially commissioned essay by Dr. Drew Daniel of Matmos accompanies the exhibition. Download pdf here. Drew’s essay can also be linked to here
Download a larger version of this flyer here
Download the poster (featured top right) here
The exhibition also included a framed essay by Rick Prelinger on The Virtues of Preexisting Material. Here is an excerpt:
On the Virtues of Preexisting Material
© Rick Prelinger 2007
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License
1 Why add to the population of orphaned works?
2 Don’t presume that new work improves on old
3 Honor our ancestors by recycling their wisdom
4 The ideology of originality is arrogant and wasteful
5 Dregs are the sweetest drink
6 And leftovers were spared for a reason
7 Actors don’t get a fair shake the first time around, let’s give them another
8 The pleasure of recognition warms us on cold nights and cools us in hot summers
9 We approach the future by typically roundabout means
10 We hope the future is listening, and the past hopes we are too
11 What’s gone is irretrievable, but might also predict the future
12 Access to what’s already happened is cheaper than access to what’s happening now
13 Archives are justified by use
14 Make a quilt not an advertisement
Download a pdf of the full text here, or link to the essay here.
The exhibition will also launch a new CD curated by Vicki Bennett for Sonic Arts Network called ‘Smiling Through My Teeth’, a compilation of humorous music and sound art.
SPECIAL EVENTS
People Like Us Special on WFMU
Thursday 15 May, 11pm-midnight (UK time) www.wfmu.org/playlists/ER – To celebrate the exhibition opening Ergo Phizmiz hosts a People Like Us Special on his show ‘Phuj Phactory’ on WFMU, both on terrestrial radio and live internet stream.
People Like Us Talk and Screening
Friday 16 May, 7:30pm
Star and Shadow Cinema, Stepney Bank, Newcastle
Vicki Bennett presents a selection of films by People Like Us.
The Late Shows: Smiling Through My Teeth CD Launch
Saturday 17 May, 7pm-11pm
alt.gallery
www.altgallery.org
The Late Shows form part of NewcastleGateshead’s world-class festivals and events programme. www.thelateshows.org.uk
Many thanks to Rebecca Shatwell for inviting us to do this retrospective, it was great fun to work together. Rebecca is now director of AV Festival.
Continue reading “Documentation of the People Like Us Retrospective at alt.gallery”
Listen to the archive of WFMU’s PLU Special on The Phuj Phactory
If you missed it at the time, listen to the wonderful job that Ergo Phizmiz did interviewing Vicki here (will download a Realplayer link).
Smiling Through My Teeth CD curated by Vicki Bennett
Sonic Arts Network is proud to announce the release of our latest CD publication. Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) curates “Smiling Through My Teeth”, a compilation exploring the use of humour in music and sound art and bringing together an assortment of humorous songs, amusing ditties and deranged sound works. Buy the CD or get it free by joining Sonic Arts Network today. The CD contains an essay by American journalist, artist, activist, and professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, Kembrew McLeod.
Download Kembrew McLeod’s essay here or link to it here.
Smiling Through My Teeth
It is relatively unusual to find humour in sound art, even less has been written on the subject. The avant-garde can be a dry and humourless area (and is therefore perceived as such), both in writing and practice. It is not unusual for writers and audience alike to dismiss anything to the contrary; the catch is humour sometimes isn’t taken seriously, although the reality is a practitioner has to be extremely serious and accomplished in order to carry off a good piece of humorous work.
Humour and music are commonly perceived as an unlikely pair. But the removal of this expression from the pleasure and appreciation of creative art is impossible. Inflections of wit can be found in the most unlikely places, from John Cage’s 4’33’ (using silence in the way Tony Hancock used dead radio air to implicate his own boredom) through the parody of Erik Satie and Charles Ives, the metric disruptions and misquotations of John Oswald or Stock, Hausen and Walkman, and the mixing of genres by Ground Zero’s Revolutionary Pekinese Opera. The more popular end of sound manipulation is also inflected with avant-garde playfulness, for instance Carl Stalling’s cartoon music, the cut up manipulations of Spike Jones, the chaos and disorder of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and the ruination of the classics by Portsmouth Sinfonia.
If the receiver isn’t intimidated by the sort of extreme surreal humour presently found in TV and radio production, there isn’t a reason why they cannot open up to the same categories of humour apparent within the work of, for instance, Runzelstirn and Gurzelstock, Otomo Yoshihide or the Nihilist Spasm Band. This isn’t to say that they would necessarily listen to this art form in the same way as pop music, but it is possible to shift the barriers between “popular” and “obscure”. Humour transcends the confines of language and metaphor, opening the receiver’s mind to new ways of experiencing art, and a comprehension of something that may previously have been obscured.
It is interesting when my work succeeds in a humorous context, then I research and discover that it fits into all of kinds of psychological categories of humour and music that I didn’t know existed. It is true that one doesn’t need to know anything about art or cultural history to be able to make good art, but it enriches the context in which one is working, and is very inspiring to take the time to look into this history and try to also apply it to the art of one’s contemporaries.
Having considered all this, I’ll throw it all away and just say that I love the music and sounds found on this CD, for the pure energy and enthusiasm found within, and may sparks fly when you press play.
Vicki Bennett, People Like Us 2008
Scans of REVIEWS here:
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Machina (November 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Bad Alchemy (November 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Hair Entertainment (October 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Orkus (November 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Rumore (October 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Westzeit (October 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Ox (October 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Le Son Du Grisli (September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Sound Projector (May 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Frieze magazine (September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Octopus Record Of The Week (September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Rock Delux(September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – D Side(September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Titel Magazine (September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Schlendrian (September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – Vital Weekly 162 (September 2008)
Smiling Through My Teeth review – The Wire (August 2008)
TRACKLIST:
01. 3:15 Spike Jones and his City Slickers “William Tell Overture”
02. 2:51 Raymond Scott “Girl at the Typewriter”
03. 2:17 Paul Lowry “I Got Rhythm”
04. 2:53 Leif Elggren & Thomas Liljenberg “9.11 (Desperation Is The Mother of Laughter)” (edit)
05. 1:54 Komar & Melamid and Dave Soldier “The Most Unwanted Song” (edit)
06. 0:58 Ground Zero “China White”
07. 3:16 John Oswald “Pocket”
08. 1:04 Nurse With Wound “You Walrus Hurt The One You Love” (edit)
09. 2:13 Rudolf Eb.er’s Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck “Eel Dog Rap Mix” (edit)
10. 0:28 Nihilist Spasm Band “It’s Not My Fault” (edit)
11. 3:53 ‘The Freddy McGuire Show’ with Anne McGuire, Don Joyce & Wobbly “Dark Days Bright Nights”
12. 4:00 Vomit Lunchs “Total Pointless Guidance Mix” (Stock, Hausen+Walkman)
13. 0:07 Gorse “Interlude”
14. 3:40 Rank Sinatra “Take On Me”
15. 0:51 DJ Carhouse & MC Hellshit “Motha Fuck Mitsubishi”
16. 2:56 DJ Brokenwindow “Kit Clayton vs. Roscoe P. Coltrane”
17. 3:01 Christian Marclay “Maria Callas”
18. 2:35 Viennese Seven Singing Sisters “William Tell Overture”
19. 1:55 M.A. Numminen, Tommi Parko, Pekka Kujanpää “Eleitä Kolmelle Röyhtäilijälle”
20. 3:18 Justice Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device “Berlin, Germany, 270104” (edit)
21. 1:34 Adach i Tomomi “Lippp”
22. 1:02 Bill Morrison “Single Breath Blow”
23. 0:51 Zatumba “Natchung”
24. 1:12 Nihilist Spasm Band “Going Too Far” (edit)
25. 7:21 People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz “Air Hostess”
26. 0:44 Christian Bok “Ubu Hubbub”
27. 1:14 Gwilly Edmondez “Cock!”
28. 1:47 Spaz “Spaz”
29. 1:34 Komar & Melamid and Dave Soldier “The Most Unwanted Song” (edit 2)
30. 4:20 Xper. Xr. “Ride On Time”
31. 8:49 Richard Lair and Dave Soldier “Thai Elephant Orchestra Perform Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony First Movement”
32. 0:10 Nurse With Wound “You Walrus Hurt The One You Love” (edit 2)
Download at UbuWeb
People Like Us text for Smiling Through My Teeth
Smiling Through My Teeth
It is relatively unusual to find humour in sound art, even less has been written on the subject. The avant-garde can be a dry and humourless area (and is therefore perceived as such), both in writing and practice. It is not unusual for writers and audience alike to dismiss anything to the contrary; the catch is humour sometimes isn’t taken seriously, although the reality is a practitioner has to be extremely serious and accomplished in order to carry off a good piece of humorous work.
Humour and music are commonly perceived as an unlikely pair. But the removal of this expression from the pleasure and appreciation of creative art is impossible. Inflections of wit can be found in the most unlikely places, from John Cage’s 4’33’ (using silence in the way Tony Hancock used dead radio air to implicate his own boredom) through the parody of Erik Satie and Charles Ives, the metric disruptions and misquotations of John Oswald or Stock, Hausen and Walkman, and the mixing of genres by Ground Zero’s Revolutionary Pekinese Opera. The more popular end of sound manipulation is also inflected with avant-garde playfulness, for instance Carl Stalling’s cartoon music, the cut up manipulations of Spike Jones, the chaos and disorder of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and the ruination of the classics by Portsmouth Sinfonia.
If the receiver isn’t intimidated by the sort of extreme surreal humour presently found in TV and radio production, there isn’t a reason why they cannot open up to the same categories of humour apparent within the work of, for instance, Runzelstirn and Gurzelstock, Otomo Yoshihide or the Nihilist Spasm Band. This isn’t to say that they would necessarily listen to this art form in the same way as pop music, but it is possible to shift the barriers between “popular” and “obscure”. Humour transcends the confines of language and metaphor, opening the receiver’s mind to new ways of experiencing art, and a comprehension of something that may previously have been obscured.
It is interesting when my work succeeds in a humorous context, then I research and discover that it fits into all of kinds of psychological categories of humour and music that I didn’t know existed. It is true that one doesn’t need to know anything about art or cultural history to be able to make good art, but it enriches the context in which one is working, and is very inspiring to take the time to look into this history and try to also apply it to the art of one’s contemporaries.
Having considered all this, I’ll throw it all away and just say that I love the music and sounds found on this CD, for the pure energy and enthusiasm found within, and may sparks fly when you press play.
Vicki Bennett, People Like Us 2008
People Like Us featured in new Sonic Art book
Vicki Bennett/People Like Us will be featured significantly in a new book entitled “The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Design” by Tony Gibbs. You can buy it from many retailers including Amazon.
“Sonic Art and Sound Design is a technical and conceptually creative field with no one comprehensive definition; it encompasses music technology, computer programming, fine art and performance. It engages with the art of sound in ground breaking and exciting ways. The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Sound Design by Tony Gibbs is the first academic book of its kind and defines and teaches this subject in a creative and stimulating way. It explores the worlds of sonic art and sound design through their history and development as distinct subjects. Looking at new and radical approaches to sound recording, performance, installation works and exhibition. AVA proudly present The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Sound Design as the first academic text book that not only challenges what’s currently available but as with all AVA titles is created to visually stimulate as well as educate through an informative, comprehensive introduction to this exciting new subject.”
Re-Mixing It – for Mixing It on BBC Radio 3
In addition to making a 20 minute track for BBC’s last edition of Mixing It, People Like Us were invited to remix the microphone breaks of the Mixing It team. Here are the results, which the Mixing It duo were delighted with:
People Like Us – Re-Mixing It
We like to think we subverted their broadcasting technique forever!
At UbuWeb
People Like Us in The Observer
People Like Us were featured in the Sunday edition of the UK national newspaper The Observer – interviewed by Killion Fox, in a special on innovators in music. Here is the online edition.
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1794725,00.html
(scans for reference only here, here and here)
Artist Residency at the BBC
The BBC and Arts Council England have announced the names of the two artists who will be given access to archive material in order to produce original works of art.
Vicki Bennett and Chris Dorley-Brown will both take up four-month placements which will be funded by Arts Council England and hosted by the BBC. Vicki will be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC archive, whilst Chris will be working with material released by the BBC and other members of the Creative Archive Licence Group. Both will be given free reign to manipulate, mix and rework the material to create a series of artworks. Vicki has been working with remixing video for the past 15 years under the name People Like Us and has had work exhibited at the Tate Modern and Sydney Opera House. The results of her placement will be shown within the BBC. If the material can be cleared, it will be exhibited more widely. Commenting on her placement, Vicki said: “As an artist working with found footage, my interest lies in the appropriating and collaging of media in hope of gaining some kind of insight, reflection and evaluation as to where we stand in relation to when the original material was made. By taking something apart and putting it in a new location it can shed new light on both where we have come from and where we stand and should go next. This is why it is so very important that archives should be accessible, in the way that libraries are.” Chris, who works almost exclusively with archival film, audio and photographic material has recently won the Prix Italia Award. The results of his placement will be exhibited and available for download though this website Chris said: “My work is reliant on interesting archive sources. The BBC archive is probably the one I fantasies about the most, so for me the opportunity to undertake this placement is one I value highly. The opening of this and other archives by the Creative Archive Licence Group goes against the grain in these days of commercial monopolisation, but I feel that the BBC, its audiences and the creative community can benefit in new and wonderful ways from this gesture.”The aim of these placements is to highlight and stimulate the inspirational possibilities of the Creative Archive Licence, a collaboration between the BBC, the BFI, Channel 4, the Open University, Teachers’ TV, the Community Channel and MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives). Under the licence, the public can download moving images, audio and stills and rework them creatively for non-commercial use. John Willis, Director of Factual & Learning BBC explains: “The calibre and volume of applicants for these placements has been extraordinary. Both Vicki and Chris are hugely talented artists and have championed this field for quite some time, we are very lucky to be able to welcome them to the BBC. We hope that their work will both help inspire new thinking in the artistic community and demonstrate the creative possibilities of the Creative Archive Licence.” Kim Evans, Executive Director, Arts, Arts Council England, commented further: “The overwhelming response shows just how engaged many of today’s artists are with issues of ownership, downloading, distribution, remixing and the public domain. The visionary new approach to culture marked by the Creative Archive License has clearly captured their imagination and we look forward to seeing the results of Vicki’s and Chris’s placements.”- 22 March 2006
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/pressnews/press_detail.php?rid=0&sid=&browse=recent&id=603