People Like Us

THE KEYSTONE CUT UPS by PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ (2010)

The Keystone Cut Ups was commissioned by Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival in July 2010, created in 9 weeks, and premiered at The Maltings Theatre, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, UK, at the festival Opening Gala. For background on the Berwick commission please read here.

DESCRIPTION

The Keystone Cut Ups is a live performance that combines video-collage with an original musical score, created using sampling and live instrumentation, to explore the aesthetic, contextual and stylistic relationships between early silent-comedy and early avant-garde cinema.

Using the influence of slapstick comedy on the Surrealists as a starting point, the piece takes us on a madcap journey, combining the techniques and popular imagery of the two genres.

The Surrealists took to cinema easily, using it as a device to show their disdain for established artistic tradition. In their quest to liberate the imagination, they believed that the process of juxtaposing unrelated elements would create images of great emotional and poetic power. Thomas Pynchon wrote, “one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects”.

In early silent films the actors often came from the Vaudeville tradition. They used flamboyant body language and facial expressions, a style suited to melodramatic comedy, which was popular at the time for its escape value. The earliest films were influenced by the presentation methods of theatre and the stage sets and inclusion of orchestras and dancers were motifs of entertainment that stuck throughout cinema’s evolution.

The Keystone Cut Ups employs a surrealist approach, presenting images side by side on the screen at the same time. It includes the everyday objects, such as top hats or umbrellas that were utilized as props by both slapstick comedians and the Surrealists, as well as reflecting the concerns of the day like mass industrial automation, and the stories made popular through film at the time, which included clunky monsters and the fantasy of trips to the moon.

The work reflects simultaneously on the histories of these two distinct schools of cinema and how they influence one another, whilst producing a work whose structure and format is informed by both silent comedy and early experimental and avant garde cinema. – Iain Pate

TOURING

This work is now available for touring (cinemas and theatres only), please contact us for further details.

DOWNLOAD AT UBUWEB

Download a section here

Like my favourite pieces of Art, it fuelled my imagination as I got lost in both the images and often fantastical music on stage. When it ended, I felt like I had been rudely awakened from one of those cool, euphoric dreams we sometimes have: disappointed to be woken up so soon. – Observealot

The duo couldn’t have hoped for a better reception as they took their bows and to quote one man sitting behind in the audience, “it was absolutely fantastic.” – Berwick Advertiser

REVIEWS

The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in Aesthetica Magazine (September 2010)

The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in The Scotsman (September 2010)

The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in IDMb News (September 2010)

The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in The Guardian Guide (September 2010)

Interview and feature about The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in Berwick Advertiser (September 2010)

Interview and feature about The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in Kyeo TV (September 2010)
Review of The Keystone Cut Ups (People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz) in Observealot (September 2010)

RELATED ITEMS

“Perpetuum Mobile” and “Ghosts Before Breakfast” – album download and a new soundtrack to Hans Richter’s film
“Rhapsody in Glue” – album download
“Screen Play” – live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s film

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ BIOG

Over the past five years the collaboration of People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz has produced two full length albums, a podcast series, a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s “Screenplay”, a 7” single on Touch, and a 10” EP. Their work has been disseminated internationally to widespread critical acclaim, straddling the absurd with the accessible, filtering experimental and avant-garde techniques through the looking-glass of humorous pop music. They have come to resemble something akin to the Morecambe & Wise of the avant-garde…

Individually both artists have produced a vast body of work that collectively spans hundreds of hours, across film, theatre, albums, radio and live performance. Most recently People Like Us released the album “Music For The Fire” in collaboration with Wobbly on the Illegal Art label (with a new solo record due later in the year). Ergo’s most recent productions are the new album “Things to Do and Make” on Care in the Community Recordings, and the contemporary opera about radio, magic and death “The Mourning Show”.

People Like Us website – http://www.peoplelikeus.org
Ergo Phizmiz website – http://www.ergophizmiz.net
“… a freeform, unfolding imaginary landscape that is liberally peppered with slapstick.” – Phil England, The Wire
“Bennett has taken Eisenstein’s montage collisions and refashioned them as bumper cars at a seaside carnival.” – Jim Supanick, Film Society of Lincoln Center
“Genuinely astonishing” – Boomkat
“Hilarious, but also fascinating…audacious, kaleidoscopic pop assemblages” – Brainwashed
“Beautiful, compelling, funny, crazy stuff” – Matt Groening

Opening Gala – The Keystone Cut Ups
People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz
15th September 2010
Location: The Maltings Theatre, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, UK
UK / 2010 / 40 min / Cert. Suggested 12

World Premiere
The premiere performance of the new commission from artists People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz opens the Festival. The Keystone Cut Ups is a live performance that combines video-collage with an original musical score, created using sampling and live instrumentation, to explore the aesthetic, contextual and stylistic relationships between early silent-comedy and early avant-garde cinema.

Using the influence of slapstick comedy on the Surrealists as a starting point, the piece takes us on a madcap journey, combining the techniques and popular imagery of the two genres.

The Surrealists took to cinema easily, using it as a device to show their disdain for established artistic tradition. In their quest to liberate the imagination, they believed that the process of juxtaposing unrelated elements would create images of great emotional and poetic power. Thomas Pynchon wrote, “one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects”.
In early silent films the actors often came from the Vaudeville tradition. They used flamboyant body language and facial expressions, a style suited to melodramatic comedy, which was popular at the time for its escape value. The earliest films were influenced by the presentation methods of theatre and the stage sets and inclusion of orchestras and dancers were motifs of entertainment that stuck throughout cinema’s evolution.

The Keystone Cut Ups employs a surrealist approach, presenting images side by side on the screen at the same time. It includes the everyday objects, such as top hats or umbrellas that were utilized as props by both slapstick comedians and the Surrealists, as well as reflecting the concerns of the day like mass industrial automation, and the stories made popular through film at the time, which included clunky monsters and the fantasy of trips to the moon.

The work reflects simultaneously on the histories of these two distinct schools of cinema and how they inform one another, whilst producing a work whose structure and format is informed by both silent comedy and early experimental and avant garde cinema. – Iain Pate

Don’t miss this unique event (which we have slaved over for the past two months!!!), followed by a drinks reception in the Maltings’ Stage Door Bar.
http://www.berwickfilm-artsfest.com/events-and-films/8/10/opening-gala-the-keystone-cut-ups#

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival
Berwick-upon-Tweed
15–19 September 2010
http://www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/September/091502.html

Now in its 6th year, the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival returns to celebrate the art of film in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Over the course of five action-packed days, we will be offering a whole range of feature and short films, artists’ film and video work and specially commissioned pieces. These will be screened at the Maltings and other unique architectural locations across town as part of the Artist’s trail.

This year’s theme, Stagings, explores the role of the screen as a stage, turning Berwick itself into a platform for screening, projecting and staging moving image. The selected works offer different approaches to the relationship between performer, camera and audience and will include dance on film, music videos and old classics – something for everyone: from children to families to fans of film, art, theatre and music.
There are four new commissions this year, of which one is for the creation of a brand new live a/v performance from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz to be premiered in Berwick on Wednesday 15 September.

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz – Over the past five years the collaboration of People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz has produced two full length albums, a podcast series, a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s ‘Screenplay’, a 7″ single on Touch, and a 10″ EP. Their work has been disseminated internationally to widespread critical acclaim, straddling the absurd with the accessible, filtering experimental and avant-garde techniques through the looking glass of humorous pop music. They have come to resemble something akin to the Morecambe & Wise of the avant-garde…

Individually both artists have produced a vast body of work that collectively spans hundreds of hours, across film, theatre, albums, radio and live performance. Most recently People Like Us released the album ‘Music For The Fire’ in collaboration with Wobbly on the Illegal Art label (with a new solo record due later in the year). Ergo’s most recent productions are the new album ‘Things to Do and Make’ on Care in the Community Recordings, and the contemporary opera about radio, magic and death ‘The Mourning Show’.

www.berwickfilm-artsfest.com

The other commissions by other artists are:

Mat Fleming, Deborah Bower and Harriet Plewis – Mat has been making films since he was 18 with a special enthusiasm for 8mm and 16mm film. In 2001 he co-founded Cineside, which became the Side Cinema, and then Star and Shadow Cinema collective. Deborah is an artist, film enthusiast and zine maker. Having studied fine Art, she works mainly with film and the pieces often involve lone characters performing to camera in a cinematic manner. Harriet is a performance artist, movement director and co-founder of experimental theatre collective, The Awkwards. She trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris and frequently performs with companies including Zephyr in Zanussi Dance Collectif and Factory Party Productions. Her work, often comic, is concerned with the representation of authenticity and modern approaches to protest.

Corin Sworn – originally from Canada, Corin now lives and works in Glasgow. Her practice examines shifting ideals and understandings from one period in history to another. Sworn examines these themes through the production of objects, ephemera and films. These films use various historical events and understandings to construct loose narratives that wander among fragments of the past. Through the use of appropriation much of her work is built from these ‘fragments’.

BJ Nilsen – is a Swedish sound and recording artist. His work is primarily focused on the sound of nature and its effect on humans, field recordings, and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound, often electronically treated. Nilsen has created worked for documentary film, television and sound designer. He has collaborated with, among others, Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, Hildur Gudnadottir, Semiconductor, Brandon La Belle, Phillip Jeck and Jon Wozencroft.