People Like Us Residency at Cafe OTO

PEOPLE LIKE US Cafe OTO ARTIST RESIDENCY 
27 / 28 / 29 OCTOBER 2023

Tickets: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/people-like-us-three-day-residency/
Buy PASS for all three events £28 ADVANCE £15 MEMBERS
or for individual events £16 £14 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

PEOPLE LIKE US | NEGATIVLAND | ERGO PHIZMIZ | GWILLY EDMONDEZ 
POREST | IRENE MOON | WOBBLY | HEARTY WHITE

Cafe OTO is proud to announce a new artist residency, featuring multimedia artist Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. Vicki has collaborated with a wide range of artists and musicians; some are joining us for this 3-Day residency, alongside some screenings and discussions. The residency includes a preview of the new People Like Us audiovisual performance Is This The Real Life?

People Like Us

DAY 1 | 8PM
HEARTY WHITE (compère) | POREST | IRENE MOON | NEGATIVLAND
PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ & GWILLY EDMONDEZ (trio)
DAY 1 PASS £16 £14 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

HEARTY WHITE compère 
Our residency compère is Hearty White, a performer based in Lexington, Kentucky. His one-hour weekly radio show “Miracle Nutrition with Hearty White” has aired on WFMU from 2012 until the present. https://wfmu.org/playlists/ha

Hearty White

POREST
Porest is the music and performance outlet of post-American artist and producer Mark Gergis. For decades, Porest has issued a trail of confounding agitprop sound art, post-globalized hate-pop, diabolical radio dramas, big songs and small songs. Porest’s blatant embezzlement of human syntax and cultural misunderstanding broadcasts vital mixed messages across all fields, forging carefully rearranged realities that both avoid and indulge the inherent trappings of radical art and politics. Live performances integrate Porest’s music, performance and sound into a grand total sum that can’t be unseen. Ongoing collaborations have included: Negativland (USA) Alan Bishop / Sun City Girls (USA), Aavikko (Finland), Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us (UK), among others. Porest has performed and toured worldwide, with albums released on Nashazphone (Cairo), Discrepant (UK), and in the US on the Seeland, Abduction and Resipiscent labels. 
In the 1990s and 2000s, Mark was co-founder of the long-running experimental California music and performance collective Mono Pause, as well as its offshoot Neung Phak. In his other life, Mark is an archivist and producer for global music releases on the Sublime Frequencies and Sham Palace labels, including compilations and documentary works such as I Remember Syria, Cambodian Cassette Archives, Saigon Rock & Soul, Choubi Choubi (Iraq), Dabke: Sounds from the Syrian Houran and his extensive work with artists Omar Souleyman (Syria) and Erikin Koray (Turkey). https://porest.bandcamp.com/

Mark Gergis (Porest)

IRENE MOON
Since 1997, Scientifically Speaking with Irene Moon has been presenting The Lectography: musical lectures about insects and other arthropods in an attempt to elevate entomology as a rock genre. Performing at basement house shows and more famous music venues like the Knitting Factory and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Irene Moon has toured the US, Europe, and Australia. She created over 30 musical volumes during her career and performed live radio broadcasts dealing with entomological topics on WFMU in New York and other radio stations. Irene Moon (a.k.a Katja C. Seltmann, Ph.D.) is the Director of the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She brings the aesthetics from the entomology laboratory in front of alternative audiences in the form of absurd, factual presentations about insects. 
Her performance at Cafe Oto PLU Residency is a lounge-inspired lecture on bee biodiversity and evolution titled “Will You Bee Mind” that incorporates psychedelic imagery, pop-styled torch songs, and comedy. https://www.begoniasociety.org

Irene Moon

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ & GWILLY EDMONDEZ 
First commissioned for The Wire 40 Anniversary and now seen for the first time in expanded form, this new trio showcases a whole new AV performance dedicated to collage, technology and the cut-up. 
“The interplay between People Like Us, Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez creates a harmonious and dynamic show that captivates and enthrals. The combination of music, poetry, and performance art creates a magical and unforgettable experience for the audience.” – Tough Sell Zine

Gwilly Edmondez, People Like Us, Ergo Phizmiz

NEGATIVLAND
What’s a recording? Are they safe? Are the things being played back true, or are they simply becoming familiar? You can wait for your own brain to come up with the answers, or you can go hear music in a room full of people. Don’t worry — you won’t even realize how much of it you’re going to remember.
We are pleased as pugs to be participating in the People Like Us residency — whatever we end up doing is sure to only happen there, because you can never hear the same recording twice. https://negativland.com/

Negativland

DAY 2 | 8PM
HEARTY WHITE (compère) | WOBBLY solo | ERGO PHIZMIZ solo
PEOPLE LIKE US solo | GWILLY EDMONDEZ solo
DAY 2 PASS £16 £14 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

HEARTY WHITE compère
Our residency compère is Hearty White, a performer based in Lexington, Kentucky. His one-hour weekly radio show “Miracle Nutrition with Hearty White” has aired on WFMU from 2012 until the present. https://wfmu.org/playlists/ha

WOBBLY
Jon Leidecker (aka Wobbly) is a human in the loop, improvising with people and machines that listen. His work with sampling and feedback blurs any easy distinction between his solo and collaborative work, including touring and recording with Negativland, the Thurston Moore Group, People Like Us, Jennifer Walshe, Zeena Parkins, Zoh Amba, Dieter Moebius & Tim Story, Matmos, Thomas Dimuzio, Fred Frith and Huun-Huur-Tu (among others). Lectures on the various secret histories of electronic music have been presented at Mills, Stanford, Oxford, Peabody, UC Berkeley, and MACBA.
As well as playing as part of Negativland, Jon will perform a solo set for this residency. https://www.detritus.net/wobbly/news.html

Jon Leidecker (Wobbly)

ERGO PHIZMIZ
Ergo Phizmiz is a composer, writer, collagist, stage director and radio playwright. Recent projects have included animated stage designs for “The Rake’s Progress” at the Royal Academy of Music and Maggio Musicale Firenze, and the huge, smash hit community pantomime “The Quantum Horse” in collaboration with Cube Microplex, Bristol. Their multiple award winning work for radio includes programmes for Bayerischer Rundfunk, Deutschlandradiokultur, BBC Radio 3, BBC 6Music, WFMU, West Deutscher Rundfunk, VPRO and Resonance FM. Recent music releases have mainly comprised the deluxe holiday leisure trilogy on Strategic Tape Reserve “Elmyr”, “Plaza Centraal” and “Owl and Monkey Haven”. Ergo is currently developing a new operatic work “Adapting Don Quixote” as a PhD at the University of Bristol. 
Ergo will perform a rare solo set for this residency. http://ergophizmizmusic.bandcamp.com

Ergo Phizmiz

PEOPLE LIKE US
Residency host Vicki Bennett will preview her brand new audiovisual performance “Is This The Real Life?” This work explores themes of reality and perception and the relationship between image and sound. https://peoplelikeus.org

GWILLY EDMONDEZ
Gwilly Edmondez emerged in the 1980s from Bridgend, South Wales, where he was a founder member of Radioactive Sparrow, once dubbed ‘the most legendary band you’ve probably never heard of.’ Gwilly practices a form of composition that disavows fixity and rehearsal, preferring an approach that dissolves the line between ‘life’ and ‘performance’ in ways that compromise neither. Having coined the term Wild Pop to describe his aesthetic as both a solo artist and as Gustav Thomas in YEAH YOU (est. 2013), his embracing the age of evaporation is manifest in a relentless autopathology oriented towards devotional sublimation.
Gwilly closes Day 2 of the residency with a special dictaphone karaoke set, a real crowd pleaser. https://gwillyedmondez.bandcamp.com/

Gwilly Edmondez

DAY 3 | 2-5PM
PEOPLE LIKE US & HEARTY WHITE CONVERSATION, VARIATIONS LECTURE & CHART SWEEP PERFORMANCE
DAY 3 PASS £10 £8 ADVANCE £5 MEMBERS

VICKI BENNETT and HEARTY WHITE IN CONVERSATION
A discussion between the People Like Us and Hearty White, followed by a Q&A.
https://peoplelikeus.org | https://wfmu.org/playlists/HA

JON LEIDECKER “VARIATIONS: A HISTORY OF SAMPLING MUSIC”
Morton Feldman’s remark that “The degree to which a music’s notation is responsible for much of the composition itself is one of history’s best-kept secrets” referred to the medium of sheet music. But the comment is just as true now that the site of the musical composition has migrated from written notation to the captured recording. The creative process of modern music production is revealed to the listening audience in the form of collage and sampling music precisely through its use of familiar materials;  through a demonstration of how known compositions and sounds can be transformed, the tools used by all sound engineers to construct modern popular music are made transparent.
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/buscador/radio/serie/variations-9458

GWILLY EDMONDEZ SINGS “CHART SWEEP”
CHART SWEEP (AKA TIME SWEEP) is a 2-part mix created by Hugo Keesing using up to 5 seconds of each and every #1 since the mid-fifties, in order, up until 1981 in Part 1 and into the early nineties in Part 2. find more info at ubu.com/sound/keesing.html
Gwilly Edmondez started watching Top of the Pops when he was 3. From then on he was obsessed with pop music. he has developed an approach to music making that collides a pop sensibility (with all its showbiz delusional rhetoric) with the materials and mentalness of experimental music.
ubu.com/sound/edmondez.html | https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/gwilly-edmondez-sings-chart-sweep

Rhapsody in Glue Ltd Edition Lathe Cut LP


PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZRhapsody in Glue
Limited edition 12” lathe cut clear vinyl LP & download
Release Date: 26 November 2022
Pre-order on Bandcamp from Friday 7 October 2022

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/rhapsody-in-glue-lp

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz are pleased to announce the release of a new limited edition vinyl album, “Rhapsody in Glue”.

Rhapsody in Glue began its journey as part of the Codpaste podcast on New York tri-state area radio station WFMU in 2008. With Rhapsody in Glue we find a unique approach to constructing a record. People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz decided to publicly tear apart their respective practices and create an album “in the open”, presenting on a seafood-filled-platter the process of collaborative collage composition – informally discussing and jabbering nonsense to one another, resulting in the Codpaste free podcast series. Rhapsody in Glue was the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.

The album was initially released as an online-only release on Bleep in 2008, and now for the first time ever we are making it available in a Limited Edition of 100, hand numbered copies on 12” high quality remastered stereo lathe cut vinyl, hand cut by Bladud Flies! It comes with 300gsm inserts, lyric sheet, digital download codes, both for this, and also the original digital album release from 2008. The vinyl will ship with a polylined inner sleeve.

The vinyl will ship within a polylined inner sleeve. Includes a ‘lathe cut’ care card. Limited edition of 100, hand numbered.

New summer mix from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/track/in-the-waking-2022-extended-mix

An extended, taking-a-line-for-a-walk remix of People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz “In the Waking”, created for one of the opening concerts of King’s Place, London in the late 2000s. The song, a lullaby of a summer place, was created through the Codpaste podcast sessions which led to the collaborative album “Rhapsody in Glue”, and was later released as a 7″ on Touch. This unreleased version lets the song twirl off into a gentle polyphonic fantasia.

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.

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 

30 Years of People Like Us – Cafe OTO gig with PLU and friends

30 YEARS OF PEOPLE LIKE US – PEOPLE LIKE US + POREST + GWILLY EDMONDEZ + IRENE MOON + ERGO PHIZMIZ at CAFE OTO London

CAFE OTO, LONDON
TUESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2021, 7.30PM
£16 DOOR | £14 ADVANCE | £8 MEMBERS

An evening hosted by Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), featuring live performances from Porest, Gwilly Edmondez, Irene Moon, Ergo Phizmiz and People Like Us.

Get tickets well in advance here because Cafe OTO gigs are selling out quickly.
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/30-years-of-people-like-us/

List of Residencies, Commissions & Collaborations

ALL COMMISSION ENQUIRIES OR BOOKINGS FOR GONE, GONE BEYOND ARE TO BE DONE DIRECTLY WITH US THROUGH OUR CONTACT PAGE.

Preparing to create a new solo live AV performance in 2023
CuratorSpace Artist Bursary [2022]
More Gone, Gone Beyond in production [2022]
New radio commission “Changing Your Mind” for Deutschlandradio [2022/2023]
108 new radio work for Radio Art Zone [2022]
Mind Maps: The Art of Vicki Bennett Sheehan Gallery, Walla Walla, USA | [2022]
Global Eyes video for THE THE [2022]
PRSF Open Fund For Music Creators recipient [2021]
Gone, Gone Beyond Commissioned by SPILL Festival of Performance, presented in partnership with Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) and Barbican. Supported by Recombinant Media Labs (RML), DanceEast, nyMusikk, Gulbenkian, TouchDesigner, PRS Foundation’s The Open Fund and Arts Council England. Developed as part of Sound and Music’s New Voices Programme. [2021]
a-n Artist Bursaries 2019 recipient [2019]
I Can Fly new radio work for WDR3 [2019]
Hallwalls Artist in Residence Project (HARP) artist [2019-2020]
Sound and Music New Voices award recipient [2018-2020]
New live a/v performance “The MirrorACE Grants for the Arts [2018-2019]
8 speaker / 10 screen audiovisual installation “Gone, Gone Beyond” with Recombinant Media Labs and Cinechamber [2016++]
Video editing/production for The The Comeback Special [Spring 2018]
Can’t Stop What’s Coming video for THE THE [2017]
Curation of radio station and artist residency (with John Kilduff) Optimized! on WFMU funded by National Endowment for the Arts [June 2016]
No One Is An Island radio commission for WDR to be broadcast 9 April 2016 on WDR 3 [Summer 2015-Winter 2015]
Curation of films for Concert of Collage, Watershed, Bristol [September 2015]
Nothing Can Turn Into A Void, editing a feature length doc film by Carl Abrahamsson about Vicki Bennett/People Like Us [Spring 2015]
Arts Council England award creating a new live a/v performance Citation City and new short films with artist soundtracks pdf [Spring 2014-Spring 2015]
Book collaboration with Gregor Weichbrodt The Fundamental Questions [Summer 2014]
Those Who Do Not T Shirt Commission [Summer 2014]
Printed in a light blue and white on an electric blue T-shirt with The Wire logo and Vicki Bennett Those Who Do Not printed in light blue on the back of the neck. Limited edition of 100 shirts.
Solo gallery show Shutter at Leeds College of Art pdf [Winter-Spring 2014]
Touring award from Sound and Music for Notations [Autumn/Winter 2013]
Two short animation films for Animate Projects/Channel 4 television, UK as part of their Random Acts Series [March 2013-July 2013] broadcast on national television in Autumn 2013 pdf
Creation of online film with 7 artist soundtracks Gesture Piece, commissioned by Pixel Palace at Tyneside Cinema pdf [Spring/Summer 2013]
Creating a new live A/V performance Consequences (One Things Leads To Another, commissioned by Arts Council England [August 2012-January 2013], supported by transmediale [January 2013]
Music for live performance piece Lost and Found by Anne Juren [Summer 2012]
Archiving Radio Boredcast on WFMU, commissioned by AV Festival wfmu.org/playlists/ZZ [May-June 2012]
Curating an online-radio station Radio Boredcast for AV Festival 12pdf [Sept 2011-March 2012]
Sound and Music commission to make a/v live performance Horror Collage for The Sound Of Fear (later changed to The Magical Misery Tour Southbank Centre, London [September 2011]
The Doors of Perspection at Vitrine Gallery London [July/August 2011]
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival commission to create a new live a/v performance The Keystone Cut Ups with Ergo Phizmiz [2010]
Curation of Nothing is New, Everything Is Permitted. as part of AV Festival 10 at the Star and Shadow, Newcastle [2010]
Edinburgh Printmakers commission to create audio and artwork for a picture disc LP “This Is Light Music”, as part of their group exhibition Prints of Darkness to be shown at Edinburgh Printmakers in Summer 2010 then touring venues [2010]
Grants For The Arts commission to create new a/v performance Genre Collage [2008-2009]
Great North Run Moving Image Commission 2009 The Great North Run Cultural Programme – to create a film using the archives of the Great North Run, Parade pdf [July 2008-October 2009]
Grants For The Arts commission to release Rhapsody In Glue with Ergo Phizmiz on bleep.com – an album created with audio collage sourced from the podcast Codpaste (May 2008)
 Retrospective solo exhibition of People Like Us A/V work, entitled We Edit Life at alt.gallery Newcastle curated by Rebecca Shatwell pdf [May 2008]
Curation of CD Smiling Through My Teeth – Sonic Arts Network [May 2008]
Forma/AV Festival commission Breaking Waves to make Bluetooth audio compositions for mobile phone [January 2008]
Lecturing Music and Other Media at Goldsmiths [2006-2008]
Wandsworth Film Awards commission to make short digital film Skew Gardens, exploring the boundaries of urban land use – [September 2007]
Lovebytes commission in association with Millennium Galleries, Sheffield to make three screen A/V film Work, Rest & Play [June 2007]
 Grants For The Arts commission to make podcast series Codpaste on WFMU, where People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz explore the working process of creating music from scratch [September 2007]
Radio session for BBC Radio 3’s Mixing It [February 2007]
Artist Residency at BBC Creative Archive with “access all areas” to work with their archive – Arts Council England (Interdisciplinary Arts) with BBC, White City – [March 2006]
Grants For The Arts commission to create 10″ record to be given away for free in selected international record stores Honeysuckle Boulevard [August 2006]
PRS Foundation award to create a new live performance (with artist Ergo Phizmiz) using dansette players and self-pressed vinyl compositions Boots! [June 2006]
Sonic Arts Network / Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studio (EMS) commission working with Daphne Oram’s sound archive [Summer 2005]
Grants for the Arts commission to create new live A/V performance – [April 2005]
LUX commission to make digital short film sourcing the LUX archive collection Resemblage [October 2004]
Residency at FACT to make radio play Molaradio in collaboration with artist Felix Kubin and Croxteth school children [January 2004]
Sonic Arts Network commission to make short film and subsequent DVD release – Story Without End [June 2004]
Live performance with Wobbly for radio broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Mixing It, London Spitz [May 2004]
BBC Radio 1 session for John Peel [January 2003]
Future Physical commission to make digital short film The Remote Controller [June 2002]
Baby Zizanie (JG Thirlwell and Jim Coleman) live video for BZ performed at David Bowie’s Meltdown at QEH, London (June 2002)
Lovebytes commission to make short film We Edit Life [December 2002]
Curated line up for Humour in Music event, Ether Festival at Purcell Room, London [May 2002]
Year of the Artist Residency, Lighthouse, Brighton with Brighton & Hove Music Library, teaching sound collage [June 2001]
Year of the Artist Residency, Hull Time Based Arts, making A/V collage – [January-April 2001]
Live session and BBC Radio 3 broadcast for Mixing It, Dingwalls [March 2001]
Work & Leisure International commission to make new A/V live performance – [September 1999]
Ars Electronica – The Sound of Music live collaboration with Negativland and Barbed [Summer 1998]
Various radio commissions for De Avonden on VPRO, The Netherlands [early 1990s]

OPTIMIZED! Expanded Radio Stream on WFMU!

OPTIMIZED! Expanded Radio Stream on WFMU 6-10 June 2016, Noon-3pm (EST)
Playlists & archives: http://wfmu.org/playlists/UP
Documentation: https://peoplelikeus.org/2016/optimized-wfmu/

From 6-10 June 2016 Vicki Bennett and John Kilduff were Artists in Residence at freeform radio station WFMU in Jersey City, NJ, USA.

NEW! Documentation Video:

This residency consisted of “Optimized!” – a week-long online a/v radio station which experimented with ideas of what radio might be in the world of high speed internet broadcasting.

The content included 26 new a/v artist commissions selected and programmed by Vicki Bennett, where people were invited to respond to the word “optimized”, John Kilduff’s live “Let’s Paint TV” daily video show which combines, painting, cooking and exercise, and an evening at the station with an in-house studio audience.

John Kilduff and Vicki Bennett Artist Residency – Expanded Radio at WFMU

optimized-schedule
Noon-2pm: 10 hours of new/exclusive recordings, radio & video by 26 participants. Programmed by Vicki Bennett / People Like Us
2pm-3pm: Daily video shows live from WFMU’s Monty Hall by John Kilduff / Let’s Paint TV – Mr Let’s Paint will take your calls! skype: letspaintwfmu
3pm-5pm: repeat of noon-2pm schedule
9 June 2016: A live expanded radio event at Monty Hall with Let’s Paint TV & People Like Us / DIFM (Do It For Me) with Pseu Braun

Pseu Braun DIFM (Do It For Me) at Monty Hall

Continue reading “OPTIMIZED! Expanded Radio Stream on WFMU!”

Radio Premiere on WDR: No One Is An Island by Vicki Bennett

WDR 3 Open Sounds presents : No One Is An Island by Vicki Bennett
Listen live on this link on Saturday with this pop up player on WDR 3:
http://www1.wdr.de/radio/player/radioplayer106~_layout-popupVersion.html

Vicki Bennett was commissioned by WDR (German Radio) to make a 28-minute radio work called No One Is An Island.  This will premiere, alongside 3 other separate commissions (Iain Chambers, Ergo Phizmiz and Lucinda Guy) on
Saturday, April 9, 2016, 22:05 to 00:00 (Mainland Europe – that’s 21:05 UK time).
Background info http://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/programm/sendungen/wdr3-open-sounds/from-britain-104.html

Update: this piece is also online at UbuWeb! http://ubu.com/sound/plu_noone.html

Thanks to the following for taking their time to give me their thoughts about ideas:
Ergo Phizmiz, Ava, Savanna,  Rowen, Mathilde, Lila, Andrew Sharpley, Cameron, Katja Seltmann, Rick Prelinger, Iain Chambers, Jeff Carey and Falco, Graham Duff, Kenneth Goldsmith, Charlie Lewis, Henry Lowengard, Tim Maloney, Kevin Hamilton, Akāshamitra, Dorian Jones and Lenny, Marcus Boon and Jesse, Saraka, Suddhaka and Sunayaka.

No One Is An Island
Where do ideas come from? Are they our own or are we channeling some spark from a larger flame? In this programme we examine the relationship between artists, writers, scientists and philosophers and the receiving, possession and transmission of ideas.
Culture is a complex process of sharing and signification. Meanings are exchanged, adopted, and adapted through acts of communication. The tools we use – the photocopier, camera, computer, encourage, in fact insist upon the act of cutting, copying and pasting – it is second nature. Through mimicry and repetition we learn.


UbuWeb new addition: Don’t Think Right, It’s All Twice

Yes, now available for free download courtesy of and thanks to UbuWeb:
Don’t Think Right, It’s All Twice
http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_thinktwice.html

  1. Music Sounds Better With Me
  2. Free Rod McKMoon
  3. I’m Dreaming
  4. Blue By You
  5. Summer Music For An Almost Equinox
  6. Crazy
  7. Stand By Your
  8. Once A Pun A Time
  9. Break Me, Break My Horse
  10. Recycling Is Nothing New
  11. Oh Moon
  12. Trains and Blackbirds
  13. Free (As A Chapel In The Moonlight)
  14. Don’t Think Right, It’s All Twice
  15. Singin’ Femme Fatale (with Ergo Phizmiz)
  16. Abridge
  17. The Atlantic Conveyor
  18. Panic As Usual And Avoid Shopping
  19. Eve Of Sunshine

Release date: 31 October 2013
Cutting Hedge SNIP001 

The music on this album was composed between 2006 and 2013 initially for five different live performances of moving image and sound.

Performance sources:
Lyrics in Libraries (2006) | Genre Collage (2009) | People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz Live at Cafe Oto (2009) | The Magical Misery Tour (2011) | Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) (2013)

Some of the tracks listed above also have a moving image representation in People Like Us in UbuWeb Film

RELATED RESOURCES:

Ergo Phizmiz in UbuWeb Sound
People Like Us in UbuWeb Film