Tag: ergo phizmiz

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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!”

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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
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

Vicki-Bennett-No-One-Is-An-Island-transcriptionDownload

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.

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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

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UbuWeb new addition: Welcome Abroad

Another People Like Us album now available for free download over at UbuWeb:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_welcome.html

Welcome Abroad {2011)

  1. Sing
  2. Happy Lost Songs
  3. Stuck in the USSR
  4. The Look
  5. Help Me To Help Myself
  6. What Will I Do
  7. Lost In The Dark
  8. Push The Clouds Away
  9. The Sound Of The End Of Music
  10. Wonderful Wonderful
  11. Driving Flying Rising Falling
  12. Ever
  13. Hush
  14. Wandering
  15. The Seven Hills of Rome (with Ergo Phizmiz)
  16. You’ve Got To Know When
  17. The Atlantic Conveyor

Release date: 24 May 2011
Illegal Art IA124 http://www.illegalart.net

Press release

“Welcome Abroad is the soundtrack to a dream – overlaying a cabaret with the circus, a music hall with the radio, a nightclub with the movies. Finely tuned sounds from the collective unconscious, fitted together with care and clarity and skill, producing a hallucinatory landscape that shifts and slides, shimmering with each new sample. Julie Andrews duets with Jim Morrison? Damn.” –Steinski

Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland’s airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. Volcanically marooned in Baltimore and NYC, Bennett utilized some of her “free” time to work on the album and even gained audio contributions from fellow experimental musicians Jason Willett (of Half Japanese) and M.C. Schmidt (of Matmos) via her extended stay.

Taking a glance at just a few tracks from Welcome Abroad, songs from The Beatles, Ennio Morricone, Danny Kaye, Bob Dylan, Rod McKuen, Elton John, Gene Pitney, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, John Denver, Julie London, and Queen are all amalgamated.  While recent mashup culture often centers on the instant gratification of seamlessly juxtaposing hooks, People Like Us tracks transform the source material into collages that are equal parts dissonance and pleasure, making artful commentaries on our culture and Bennett’s own existential amusement within such a wondrous world.

Thanks to Ergo Phizmiz, Jason Willett, M.C.Schmidt (Matmos), Virginia Pipe and Wobbly for contributing instruments, audio parts and multitracking to this album.

Lyrics on The Seven Hills of Rome by Ergo Phizmiz.

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
Jon Leidecker (Wobbly) in UbuWeb Sound
People Like Us in UbuWeb Film

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ERGO PHIZMIZ on DO or DIY

ERGO PHIZMIZ Shoots Peas on DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU
Monday 10 February 2014 @7pm-8pm NY Time (that’s midnight on Monday evening UK) Listen http://wfmu.org & broadcasting at 91.1 fm New York, at 90.1 fm in Hudson Valley

PLAYLIST here http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/54387

Ergo Phizmiz on WFMU

Ergo Phizmiz takes us on a magical mystery tour into the workings of the world of his Wild West dream odyssey “PEASHOOT“, which opens in August 2014 at Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, London. Expect an artist’s notebook falling to pieces, 1920s English versions of Cowboy tunes, a yodelling extravaganza, Jodorowsky waltzing with Morricone, thunder, lightning, rain and Marlene Dietrich.

PEASHOOT-LOGO-DOORDIY

http://ergophizmiz.blogspot.co.uk/

Ergo Phizmiz

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THE GOLEM – AN INANIMATE MATTER

“The Golem – An Inanimate Matter” – the first of our two films made for Animate Projects and Channel 4 TV which was screened on 21 August 2013 is now available for viewing:

http://vimeo.com/peoplelikeus/golem

Random Acts Secret Monsters Commission – Animate Projects/Channel 4 (2013)
Two films were commissioned, the other being “We Are Not Amused”

Title of film: The Golem, An Inanimate Matter
Name of filmmaker(s): Vicki Bennett
Synopsis of film: The Golem, a monstrous being of inanimate matter from Jewish folklore, is accidentally summoned from a book wreaks havoc through a library.

Interview with Vicki Bennett
http://www.animateprojects.org/interviews/interview_with_vicki_bennett1

Screenings
November 2013 – Screening of We Are Not Amused and The Golem – An Inanimate Matter at Bradford Animation Festival

Download stills and photos of work in progress from both We Are Not Amused and The Golem – An Inanimate Matter
https://peoplelikeus.org/piccies/random/pictures-and-screenshots.zip

Editing timeline for The Golem
Editing timeline for The Golem

The Golem to be screened on Channel 4 and then online
The Golem to be screened on Channel 4 and then online

More images from The Golem:

Still from The Golem, rumbled by a character from an old fairy tale
Still from The Golem, rumbled by a character from an old fairy tale

Ergo Phizmiz plays "Simple Stephen"
Ergo Phizmiz plays “Simple Stephen”

http://www.animateprojects.org/news/our_secret_monsters_will_be_revealed

The Golem - and one of the first texts about copying - courtesy of Lewis Carroll
The Golem – and one of the first texts about copying – courtesy of Lewis Carroll in 1863

The Golem - about to be swallowed by text?
The Golem – about to be swallowed by text?

Part of a panning shot in The Golem
Part of a panning shot in The Golem

Vicki Bennett on Animate Projects website
http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_artist/b/v_bennett

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WE ARE NOT AMUSED screens on Channel 4 TV

Thursday 5th September 2013 00:10 Channel 4 TV UK

Random Acts Secret Monsters Commission – Animate Projects/Channel 4 (2013)

We Are Not Amused – the second of our two films made for Animate Projects / Random Acts on Channel 4 TV will screen this Thursday 5th September night at ten past midnight (UK) on Channel 4.  It is listed as the program “Random Acts”.  Co-written with artist Ergo Phizmiz. Update: the film is now archived on the Channel 4 Random Acts website.

We Are Not Amused on Random Acts, Channel 4 TV
We Are Not Amused on Random Acts, Channel 4 TV

Synopsis of film: Who knows where ideas come from? You or me? Or THEM?  The Muses are angry and they want their ideas back! This is a story of thieving and reappropriation, staged on a mythological platform.

Download stills and photos of work in progress from both We Are Not Amused and The Golem – An Inanimate Matter
https://peoplelikeus.org/piccies/random/pictures-and-screenshots.zip

WeAreNotAmused-2 WeAreNotAmused-3 WeAreNotAmused-4 WeAreNotAmused-5

Destruction of a painting in We Are Not Amused
Destruction of all kinds from the angry Muses in We Are Not Amused

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GESTURE PIECE – a film with a score by 7 artists

A film by Vicki Bennett [2013]
Soundtracks by :
Andrew Sharpley [00:06] | Matmos [01:02] | Wobbly [05:08] | Gwilly Edmondez [07:48] | Dave Soldier [09:38] | Jason Willett [11:02] | Ergo Phizmiz [13:23]

Gwilly Edmondez, Matmos, Ergo Phizmiz, Andrew Sharpley, Dave Soldier, Jason Willett and Wobbly each composed a score for a chapter of GESTURE PIECE, without any knowledge of who else was collaborating on the project or what the rest of the film would look or sound like.

The completed film stitches back together the seven chapters with their individual soundtracks, creating new connections between apparently unrelated film sequences. The result is a fascinating and witty reinterpretation of familiar film footage, with scenes arranged in surprising and often very funny combinations.

The title of “Gesture Piece” is partly self-explanatory – within human communication it is part of our hard circuitry that for instance we use hand gestures to articulate our speech, which is essentially graphically describing/enforcing audio or spoken discourse. Even when spoken language is not present, a whole series of hand and facial gestures are available to us to communicate expressions. By making a film that both contains human gestures (hands, facial, movement) as well as gestures made by natural and mechanical occurrences we are setting up the conditions for a dialogue between the graphical elements on the films and the improvisers, both with the film as well as with each other.

Background info
Gesture Piece @Tyneside Cinema
Review in This Is Tomorrow Magazine
Interview with a-n Magazine
Interview with SyncTank
Interview with Dominic Smith

Screenings
October 2014 – Other Cinema, San Francisco
October 2013 – Gesture Piece at High Zero Festival, Baltimore

Click on thumbnails to download stills:
GESTURE PIECE-2GESTURE PIECE-5GESTURE PIECE-3

Diagram of subjects - created in the development of the film by Vicki Bennett
Diagram of subjects – created in the development of the film by Vicki Bennett
Still from Gesture Piece by Vicki Bennett
Still from Gesture Piece by Vicki Bennett

Gesture Piece has a sister project, Notations – a film created for live performance by selected improvising musicians and artists.  When these two projects began, they shared the same umbrella name of Gesture Piece (the live performance was tested at Tectonics Festival in Reykjavik and Tel Aviv), but as the work developed it felt natural to separate them out into different names as they became two unique and separate entities.

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Radio Boredcast is now a 24/7 Radio Stream!

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People Like Us have revamped the DO or DIY radio stream, and as of Noon EDT on 3rd April 2013 it is now streaming Radio Boredcast!

Radio Boredcast is a 744-hour online radio project that celebrates all things SLOW.  And fast too, actually.  Crank it up to wind down and enjoy this selection of specially made radio shows by 100 different artists and some WFMU DJs too!

Click and listen to the 24/7 Radio Boredcast stream here.
(Download the little file linked to above – the stream works through iTunes so let your computer launch this application if prompted.  If it doesn’t launch then find the small file that you downloaded and double-click on it)

Those of you who already have the DO or DIY stream bookmarked, it will automatically switch over to the new stream for you.

Matmos: M.C. Schmidt, Drew Daniels

You can also listen to Radio Boredcast shows on demand here.
More on the history of Radio Boredcast here.

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