Artist Biography

Artist Biography

Photo credit: Polly Brown

Working under the moniker People Like Us, British artist Vicki Bennett has been creating audio-visual collage since 1991. Her extensive output spans music releases, radio broadcasts, films, live performances, gallery installations, 360° immersive environments and online media. Vicki treats collage as a form of contemporary folk art, rooted in the shared materials of mass media and technology. Central to her work is the belief that everything is interconnected, making the notion of absolute originality or isolated artistic ownership both questionable and unnecessary. Through collage, familiar sounds and images are brought into new relationships, producing unexpected meanings that extend beyond the sum of their parts.

Throughout her practice, Vicki has explored how we make sense of the world through the material already around us. Films, music, television, radio and archives provide a collective vocabulary, full of associations that change according to how they are encountered and rearranged. Sampling allows these existing fragments to take on different meanings, often revealing connections that were not apparent in their original contexts. Rather than treating the archive as a repository of fixed objects, her work approaches it as something continually being made and remade through use.

Since 2002, the majority of the People Like Us back catalogue has been freely accessible online. Vicki is a long-standing advocate of the gift economy and open access to cultural archives, demonstrating how self-distribution can create greater reach and longevity than conventional publishing channels. The discography and filmography of People Like Us have been generously hosted by UbuWeb, reflecting a commitment to sharing and cultural circulation that extends throughout her practice. In 2006, she became the first artist granted unrestricted access to the BBC archives.

Radio has been particularly important to Vicki’s exploration of how material can be collected, juxtaposed and experienced collectively. Her long-running programme DO or DIY has been broadcast on New York’s independent WFMU since 2003, continuing a practice of experimental broadcasting that began in the 1990s. Her large-scale radio projects have frequently challenged the boundaries of the medium itself. Radio Boredcast (AV Festival, 2012) was a 744-hour online radio station featuring new commissions and archival material, while Optimized! Expanded Radio (2016) transformed WFMU’s Monty Hall into a week-long online audiovisual radio station, combining live broadcasts, films, performances and audience participation. Later works include the crowdsourced radio project No One Is An Island (2016), the 22-hour commission 108 for Radio Art Zone (2022), and Changing Your Mind for Deutschlandradio. These projects investigate radio not only as a means of transmission but as a shared space in which unexpected relationships can emerge.

The same approach extends to her film and performance work, where familiar images and narratives are separated from their original contexts and made to interact. Notations (2013), a touring film created for live musical improvisation, opened up the relationship between the fixed image and its changing musical accompaniment. Citation City (2015), drawing on Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, reconstructed London through its appearances in feature films, using cinematic fragments to create an alternative geography of the city. Other works include the documentary Nothing Can Turn Into A Void (2015) and The Library of Babel, developed from 2023 onwards as a live audiovisual performance inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ story of the same name. First presented during a three-day residency at Café OTO in London, The Library of Babel explores the relationship between language, cinema, narrative and meaning, allowing familiar characters and images to become detached from their original stories. It has subsequently been presented internationally, including appearances at the Vostell Museum in Spain, WFMU’s Monty Hall, donaufestival in Austria, Other Cinema in San Francisco and wildpop at the Star & Shadow Cinema in Newcastle.

Vicki’s interest in the relationships between images, sound and their surroundings has increasingly taken her work beyond the conventional single screen. Her solo exhibition First Person, Fourth Wall (2020) at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, formed part of the Hallwalls Artist in Residence Project. Gone, Gone Beyond (2021), developed for Recombinant Media Labs’ CineChamber, used ten screens and eight speakers to create an immersive audiovisual environment surrounding the audience. Rather than directing attention towards a single image, the work allowed viewers to encounter multiple simultaneous perspectives while sharing the same physical space. The installation toured internationally, including presentations at nyMusikk Oslo, SPILL Festival, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts and London’s Barbican. This exploration continued with Mise en Abyme (2024), a widescreen, multispeaker audiovisual installation presented at Museu de Aveiro/Santa Joana in Portugal as part of Aveiro’s year as Portuguese Capital of Culture.

The processes of collecting, arranging and making associations are also visible in the structures through which Vicki develops her work. Her mind maps, lists and networks of references form a parallel visual practice, allowing ideas and materials to remain connected without necessarily imposing a fixed hierarchy. In 2022, she presented MIND MAPS: The Art of Vicki Bennett at Sheehan Gallery in the USA and Orfeó Lleidatà in Spain. The exhibition brought aspects of this associative approach into the gallery, revealing relationships between the finished works and the processes through which they emerge.

Music remains central to People Like Us, with more than 50 audio recordings released on labels including Illegal Art, Rough Trade, Soleilmoon Recordings, Discrepant, Sonic Arts Network and Touch. Her 2018 album The Mirror, accompanied by an audiovisual performance, was ranked No. 8 in The Wire‘s Albums of the Year. The retrospective double CD Sharity! Selected Works of People Like Us followed in 2023, and COPIA, the first new studio album since The Mirror, was released in 2024 and subsequently issued on vinyl by Discrepant in 2025. In 2026, Vicki began preparing THE RHiZOME in association with the relaunch of Illegal Art, continuing her exploration of musical recombination, association and transformation.

Alongside her own releases and performances, Vicki has produced an extensive body of commissioned moving-image work for other musicians. This includes films for The The, working with director Tim Pope, and videos for Marc Almond, The Soft Pink Truth and Soft Cell. During 2025 and 2026, her collaboration with Soft Cell expanded considerably, encompassing films for live performances and music videos associated with Danceteria, including Out Come The Freaks, In Heaven (When I Dance With You) and The Rainbow Room, as well as work with JG Thirlwell. These collaborations extend her approach to sampling into dialogue with other artists’ music, finding visual correspondences through association rather than literal illustration.

Over more than three decades, People Like Us has been presented internationally at venues including Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, BFI, Barbican, ICA, V&A, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Sónar (Barcelona), MAXXI (Rome), Venice Biennale, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Sydney Opera House and Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico City). Vicki’s films have been broadcast on Channel 4, while her radio work has included sessions for John Peel and Mixing It, alongside commissions for WDR and Deutschlandradio. Her work has been commissioned by organisations including Arts Council England, Barbican, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, BBC, PRS Foundation, Great North Run, Sound and Music, AV Festival, Recombinant Media Labs, Sonic Arts Network, Animate Projects, Forma, LUX and Lovebytes. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in international group exhibitions at institutions including HMKV (Dortmund), Hatton Gallery (Newcastle), Sheehan Gallery (Walla Walla), Hallwalls (New York), Edinburgh Printmakers and Pallant House (Chichester).

Vicki is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD in Creative Practice, where her research extends the ideas developed through more than thirty years of sampling and collage. Questions of memory, association, authorship and interconnectedness, long present in her artistic work, are now also explored through writing and research. Her interest in the relationship between human creativity and technological systems reflects a continuing engagement with the tools and conditions through which culture is produced, circulated and transformed.

Her writing has appeared in The Wire, including the 2026 essay Authorship Under Automation?, which examines the changing boundaries between human and machine creativity and their implications for artistic authorship. Her work has also been discussed in publications including Cutting Across Media (Duke University Press), Sensations of History (University of Minnesota Press), Kenneth Goldsmith’s Duchamp Is My Lawyer (Columbia University Press) and Carl Abrahamsson’s Different People (Trapart). People Like Us has been reviewed or profiled in The Wire, Rolling Stone, Frieze, The Guardian, NME, Sight & Sound, Film Comment, The Independent, Record Collector and numerous other publications.

Shorter Bio – Artist Statement
Filmography
Exhibitions and Editions
Selected Performances and Screenings
Commissions and Awards
Talks, Lectures
Discography
People Like Us on bandcamp

July 1, 2017October 28, 2025

Selected Performances and Screenings

People Like Us/Vicki has performed and been screened at hundreds of venues (Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, the National Film Theatre/BFI, Purcell Room, Barbican, ICA, V&A., BBC Proms, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Sonar (Barcelona), MAXXI/National Museum of XXI Century Arts (Rome), Venice Biennale, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis) and Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico City)), Venice Biennale, and radio stations – created radioworks for John Peel and Mixing it (BBC Radio) and WDR (Germany), and since 2003 has a radio show on WFMU(.org). Vicki’s work has been archived on UbuWeb since 2003, with hundreds of thousands of downloads.

If you would like to book People Like Us for concerts or commissions please use our CONTACT PAGE.

2025
7 November 2025 – Performance of The Library of Babel, wildpop at Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle, UK
17 May 2025 – – Screening (not performance) of The Library of Babel, Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, US
10 May 2025 – Performance of The Library of Babel, Donaufestival, Austria
5 April 2025 – Screening (not performance) of The Library of Babel, Surrey Poetry Festival, Guildford, UK
14 March 2025 – Screening (not performance) of The Library of Babel, Monty Hall, WFMU, Jersey City, US

2024
4 December 2024 – The Library of Babel, reiheM, Cologne
11 November 2024 – Screening (not performance) of The Library of Babel, University of Illinois Champaign, US
17 October 2024 – Library of Babel at Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle with Gwilly Edmondez and Jorge Boehringer
2-20 October 2024 – Mise En Abyme installation at https://peoplelikeus.org/2024/mise-en-abyme-new-av-installation-at-museu-de-aveiro/
13 September 2024 – Vostell Museum Malpartida, Caceres, Spain https://www.cndm.mcu.es/node/23330
13 July 2024 – Con-struct Festival, London
10 May 2024 – Flatpack Festival, Birmingham Black Box Theatre
30 March 2024 – The Library of Babel at Colchester Arts Centre
17 January 2024 – The Library of Babel at The Wire Magazine takeover of IKLECTIK

2023
14 November 2023 – Preview of The Library of Babel at CineCity at Attenborough Centre, Brighton, UK
27 / 28 / 29 October 2023 – People Like Us 3-Day Artist Residency – multiple performances incl. solo World Preview of The Library of Babel, a trio with Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez, and a duo of Chart Sweep with Gwilly Edmondez at CAFE OTO, London
18 October 2023 – The Mirror at Paard in The Hague, Netherlands (double bill with Negativland)
https://www.paard.nl/event/double-bill-negativland-people-like-us/
3/4 March 2023 – The Mirror at TUSK NORTH Festival, Newcastle, UK
18 February 2023 – The Mirror at Electric Spring Festival, University of Huddersfield, UK

2022
29 November 2022 – The Mirror at Ubu@50, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia
26 November 2022 – The Mirror at Festival BBMix, Paris, France
19 November 2022 – The Mirror live at Keroxen, Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Spain
5 November 2022 – The Mirror at Intangible Festival, Lleida, Spain
20 October 2022 – The Mirror at Stimul Festival, Prague, Czech Republic
1 July 2022 – live performance: PLU, Gwilly Edmondez and Ergo Phizmiz and short film programme
at The Wire 40: An Evening With People Like Us, The Cube, Bristol, UK
3 June 2022 – The Mirror at Open Ears Festival, Kitchener, Canada
21 May 2022 – The Mirror at Index Festival 2022, Braga, Portugal
12-27 May 2022 – Gone, Gone Beyond at Gray Area, San Francisco, USA
3 March 2022 – Nothing Can Turn into a Void with Q & A at Kimball Auditorium, Walla Walla, USA
4 March 2022 – The Mirror at Young Ballroom, Walla Walla, USA
5 March 2022 – People Like Us & Negativland live on the Radio, KWCW 90.5, Walla Walla, USA
4 April – 1 May 2022 – The MIrror at a group exhibition curated by Anthony & Graham Dolphin at Abject Gallery Sunderland, UK
1 February – 8 April 2022 – MIND MAPS: The Art of Vicki Bennett – Solo Exhibition at Sheehan Gallery, Walla Walla, USA
January 2022 – Fourth Wall at 35. Stuttgarter Filmwinter International Short Films Competition, Stuttgart, Germany

2021
13-16 October 2021 – Gone, Gone Beyond at Black Box Teater present KinoKammer with nyMusikk, Oslo, Norway
28-30 October 2021 – Gone, Gone Beyond at SPILL Festival, Ipswich, UK
4-6 November 2021 – Gone, Gone Beyond at Attenborough Centre (ACCA), Brighton, UK
10-13 November 2021 – Gone, Gone Beyond at Barbican Centre, London, UK
15 January 2021 – Fourth Wall at Imaginary Network Topologies 2021 online screening

2020
6 November 2020 – The Mirror at MAAT, Lisbon, Portugal
28 July 2020 – 4 August 2020 – The Mirror at Le Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco, France
March 2020 – The Mirror at WFMU Benefit, Monty Hall, Jersey City, USA

2019
October 2019 – The Horror!! at Cafe Oto, London, UK
October 2019 – The Mirror and Notations (performed by Blectum From Blechdom), Radius Gallery, Santa Cruz, USA
September 2019 – The Mirror at 21C Museum Hotel, Lexington, Kentucky, USA
June 2019 – The Mirror at Iklectik, London, UK
June 2019 – The Mirror and Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear (performed by students), Culture Lab, Newcastle, UK
May 2019 – The Mirror at Venice Biennale after HILLARY: The Hillary Clinton Emails by Kenneth Goldsmith, Venice, Italy
April 2019 – The Mirror at AFO 2019, Olomouc, Czech Republic
April 2019 – The Mirror at Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, USA
March 2019 – The Mirror at Musikbrauerei, Berlin, Germany
February 2019 – The Mirror at The Voix de Ville/ARTxFM Fundraiser, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

2018
November 2018 – The Mirror at Recombinant Festival, Gray Area, San Francisco, USA
November 2018 – The Mirror at CineCity Festival, Fabrica, Brighton, UK
November 2018 – The Mirror at Kunstnernes hus, Oslo, Norway
November 2018 – The Mirror at SPILL Festival, Ipswich, UK (double bill with CarterTutti)
October 2018 – The Mirror at 100 Years of Copyright Festival, HKW, Berlin, Germany
October 2018 – The Horror!! at Horse Hospital, London, UK
October 2018 – 25 Years of People Like Us, Teatro Filarmónica, Oviedo, Spain
October 2018 – The Mirror and others curated by Vicki Bennett at Spectacle Cinema, Brooklyn, USA
July 2018 – The Mirror at MACBA, Barcelona, Spain
July 2018 – The Mirror at Arenas Movedizas, Gijón, Spain
July 2018 – The Mirror at Cafe Oto, London, UK (double bill with Carl Stone)
May 2018 – The Mirror at Splice Festival, Rich Mix, London, UK
April 2018 – The Mirror at Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham, UK
April 2018 – The Mirror at Cafe Oto, London, UK
April 2018 – The Mirror at Belfast Film Festival, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, UK
April 2018 – The Mirror at Greek Film Archive, Athens, Greece
April 2018 – The Mirror at FACT, Liverpool, UK
April 2018 – Consequences (One Thing Leads to Another) at Other Cinema, San Francisco, USA
March 2018 – Best of PLU curated screenings at Sounds Like This Festival, Leeds, UK

2017
October 2017 – Gone, Gone Beyond World Premiere at Recombinant Festival, Gray Area, San Francisco, USA
October 2017 – Various films at Test Dept’s Assembly of Disturbance Festival, Red Gallery, London, UK
October 2017 – Citation City at Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, USA
September 2017 – Various films at Brighton Digital Festival, Attenborough Centre (ACCA), Brighton, UK
May 2017 – Week of performances/screenings for school children, Kulturtanken, Oslo, Norway
March 2017 – Citation City at Hull UK City of Culture (ReROOTed), Hull, UK
February 2017 – Selection of previous works at Cafe Oto, London, UK

2016
December 2016 – Shopping from Citation City at Other Cinema, San Francisco, USA
November 2016 – Citation City at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Edinburgh, Scotland
October 2016 – Magic (from Magical Misery Tour) and Magic (with Ergo Phizmiz) at Magic Late at the Horniman Museum, London
October 2016 – Nothing Can Turn Into A Void at Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn, USA
July 2016 – Nothing Can Turn Into A Void at Norberg Festival, Norberg, Sweden
June 2016 – Optimized! Radio Residency at WFMU, Jersey City and online, USA
May 2016 – Citation City at Delco Festival, Nimes, France
April 2016 – Citation City at Sonic Protest, Paris, France
April 2016 – We Are Not Amused at Apordoc, Lisbon, Portugal
April 2016 – No One Is An Island broadcast on WDR, Germany
March 2016 – Matmos video by People Like Us at Other Cinema, San Francisco, USA
February 2016 – The Sound of Silence at Friday Late, V&A, London, UK

2015
November 2015 – improvisation with M.C.Schmidt and Jennifer Walshe, Cafe OTO, London, UK
November 2015 – Nothing Can Turn Into A Void at Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden
November 2015 – Citation City at CineCity Festival, Brighton, UK
November 2015 – Nothing Can Turn Into A Void at CineCity Festival, Brighton, UK
October 2015 – Work, Rest & Play at Curtocircuito. Santiago de Compostela Film Festival-Santiago de Compostela, Spain
October 2015 – CCCitations at Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, USA
September 2015 – Citation City at Walter Benjamin Now, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
September 2015 – Citation City at Encounters Short Film Festival, Bristol, UK
August 2015 – We Are Not Amused at Usurp Zone5 Film Festival, London, UK
April 2015 – Citation City at SMUP, Parede, Portugal
March 2015 – We Are Not Amused at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, USA
March 2015 – 4’33” and Notations at group exhibition Drawing Towards Sound, University of Greenwich Galleries, London, UK
March 2015 – Citation City UK Premiere at Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham, UK
March 2015 – The Big Sleep at She Makes Noise Festival, Madrid, Spain
March 2015 – The Big Sleep at Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, USA
January 2015 – The Big Sleep at Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart, Germany
January 2015 – Citation City World premiere at transmediale, Berlin, Germany
January 2015 – People Like Us & Gwilly Edmondez live improv, Amersham Arms, London, UK

2014
December 2014 – Citation City preview at Cafe Oto, London, UK
November 2014 – January 2015 – The Golem at Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway
November 2014 – Movement – Sound – Space Festival, Plato (Gong), Ostrava, Czech Republic
November 2014 – We Are Not Amused at Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, USA
October 2014 – Magical Misery Tour at Gleam Festival, University of Glasgow, Scotland
October 2014 – Work, Rest and Play at Syndicat Mixte Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France
October 2014 – Notations and Consequences at In Mute Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, Greece
September 2014 – Notations at High Zero, Baltimore, USA
September 2014 – Notations and Consequences at Monty Hall, WFMU, Jersey City, USA
August 2014 – We Are Not Amused at Sao Paulo 25th International Short Film Festival, Brazil
August 2014 – Gesture Piece at International Program, Seoul International NewMedia, Korea
August 2014 – The Sound of the End of Music at Stockholm Music and Arts Festival curated by David Risley Gallery, Sweden
June 2014 – Skew Gardens at Gracelands, Dublin, Ireland
June 2014 – Exhibition of Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Sheffield Doc/Fest, UK
May 2014 – We Are Not Amused at Oberhausen Film Festival, London, entered for the International Film Category competition
May 2014 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Hörbar, Hamburg
May 2014 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another)/artist talk at Here To Go Symposium, MetaMorf, Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre, Sweden
March 2014 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at L’Embobineuse, Marseille, France

2013
November 2013 – We Are Not Amused at Underwire Festival, London, UK
November 2013 – We Are Not Amused and The Golem – An Inanimate Matter at Bradford Animation Festival, UK
November 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Sound of Stockholm Festival, Sweden
November 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Kraak, Manchester, UK
November 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Leeds Hyde Park Picture House as part of Leeds International Film Festival, UK
November 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Cafe OTO, London, UK
November 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
November 2013 – Tusk/Sound and Music UK tour of NOTATIONS – Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, London and Bristol, UK
Performers: Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, Mark Sanders, M.C. Schmidt, Wobbly, Jennifer Walshe, Tomomi Adachi, Jaap Blonk, Philip Jeck, Steve Noble – support from Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another)
November 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Sound of Stockholm Festival, Sweden
October 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Lab Festival, Augsburg, Germany
October 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Star & Shadow, Newcastle, UK
October 2013 – Gesture Piece at Other Cinema, San Francisco, ATA, USA
October 2013 – Gesture Piece at High Zero Festival, Baltimore, USA
October 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at lab.30 Festival, Augsburg, Germany
August 2013 – Artist talk at Liverpool Biennale, UK
June 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Only Connect Festival, Oslo, Norway
May 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Nuits Sonores Festival, Lyon, France
May 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Colchester Arts Centre, UK
April 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another), Tectonics Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland
February 2013 –Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) at Play Festival, Madrid, Spain
January 2013 – Consequences (One Thing Leads To Another) World Premiere at Transmediale, Berlin, Germany

2012
December 2012 – Work Rest & Play at Norwegian Film Institute, Oslo, Norway
November 2012 – 4’33” The Movie at Exground Filmfest, Wiesbaden, Germany
November 2012 – Clean Your Room at Filmladen Kassel e.V, Kassel, Germany
October 2012 – Clean Your Room at Impakt, Utrecht, The Netherlands
September 2012 – Genre Collage at CitySonic, Brussels, Belgium
August 2012-June 2013 – Cage Silenced and 4’33” The Movie in SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE Cage – 4’33” Exhibition – Silence 1912 – 1952 to 2012 – HMKV, Dortmund, Germany
August 2012 – Performing in BBC Proms 47, John Cage, “Branches” and “Improvisations III”, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK
Summer 2012 – Prints of Darkness tour, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, Scotland
July 2012 – Magical Misery Tour at Latitude Festival, East Anglia, UK
June 2012 – Magical Misery Tour at Belfast Film Festival, UK
May 2012 – Trying Things Out, Story Without End and Resemblage at Musee d’Art Moderne et Contemporain-Strasbourg, France
May 2012 – Magical Misery Tour at Caixaforum, Madrid, Spain
April 2012 – The Sound of the End of Music at Image Forum Festival, Tokyo, Japan
Spring 2012 – Prints of Darkness purchased for Pallant House Collection, Chichester for inclusion in their collection in 2012, UK
January 2012 – Screening of The Sound of the End of Music, Transmediale, Berlin, Germany

2011
December 2011 – Magic at Kineteca, Madrid, Spain
November-December 2011 – Prints of Darkness tour, Engramme, Quebec, Canada
November 2011 – Magical Misery Tour at CineCity, Brighton Film Festival, UK
November 2011 – The Sound of the End of Music at Filmladen Kassel e.V., Kassel, Germany
November 2011 – Magical Misery Tour at Bristol Encounters International Film Festival, UK
November 2011 – Magical Misery Tour at Cork Film Festival, Ireland
October 2011 – Speaking and screening at RadioVision conference, NYC, USA
October 2011 – Skew Gardens and Trying Things Out at Merge Festival, Bankside, London, UK
October 2011 – Genre Collage at Almost Cinema, Gent Film Festival, Belgium
September 2011 – Horror Collage premiered at The Sound Of Fear at South Bank Centre, London, UK
July-September 2011 – Solo exhibition The Doors of Perspection at Vitrine Gallery, London, UK
August 2011 – Skew Gardens, The Keystone Cut Ups and The Sound of the End of Music at Mitternachtskino – Frankfurt am Main, Germany
July 2011 – Print edition co-published by Modern Empire and Vitrine Gallery, London, UK
May-June 2011 – Modern Empire at La Scatola Gallery, London, UK
May-June 2011 – Prints of Darkness tour, The Changing Room, Stirling, Scotland
May 2011 – Genre Collage at Auditorium of Rome, Italy
May 2011 – Live Excerpts at Expanded Video exhibition, MAXXI, Rome, Italy
April 2011 – More Soup and Tart at The Barbican, London, UK
April 2011 – Genre Collage at Open Ears Festival, Kitchener Ontario, Canada
April 2011 –Various screenings at Satellite Vitrine Gallery, The Hospital Club, London, UK
March 2011 – The Keystone Cut Ups at Flatpack Festival, Birmingham, UK
March 2011 – Genre Collage and multiple film screenings at Ambulante Festival (various locations), Mexico
January 2011 – Genre Collage at Art’s Birthday Party, Swedish Radio, Stockholm, Sweden

2010
November-December 2010 – Prints of Darkness tour, Matthew Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee, Scotland
November 2010 – Genre Collage at The British Film Festival, Kyiv, Ukraine
October 2010 – Supersonic Festival, Birmingham, UK
September 2010 – Press Play Film Festival, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK
September 2010 – Berwick Film And Media Arts Festival – World premiere of The Keystone Cut Ups with Ergo Phizmiz, UK
August 2010 – Skew Gardens at Lincoln Center, as part of UbuWeb evening, NYC, USA
August 2010 – Genre Collage at Vintage Goodwood, Goodwood, UK (curated by Mike Flowers)
August 2010 – Genre Collage presented by Forma and the British Council , Lviv, Sebastopol, Ukraine
July-Sept 2010 – Prints of Darkness, Edinburgh Printmakers group exhibition – pic disc LP and print by Vicki Bennett, Scotland
July 2010 – Genre Collage at Arnolfini in conjunction with Encounters Film Festival, Bristol, UK
July-Oct 2010 – Parade as part of group exhibition In The Long Run: 30 Years of Great Running – Great North Museum: Hancock, UK
June 2010 – Genre Collage at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, UK
May 2010 – Genre Collage at Liverpool Sound City, in conjunction with Sound and Music, UK
April 2010 – Genre Collage at Transmodern 2010, Baltimore, USA
April 2010 – Genre Collage at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, USA
March 2010 – Genre Collage at AV Festival, Newcastle, UK

2009
December 2009 – BFI Southbank, London, UK
December 2009 – Grand Café Zum Rothen Krebsen (IFEK Institut für erweiterte Kunst), Linz, Austria
November 2009 – Night of the Long Worms, Cafe OTO, London, UK
November 2009 – NEW NEW! 2009 – Fleda, Brno, Czech Republic
October 2009 – WFMU Record Fair, NYC, USA
October 2009 – Vancouver New Music Festival, Canada
August 2009 – Cafe OTO, live with Ergo Phizmiz, London, UK
September-November 2009 – Parade (film and two photo works at Hatton Gallery as part of Hit The Ground, Newcastle , UK
May 2009– Skew Gardens at Sonic Recycler, London, UK
May 2009 – Work, Rest & Play at Vienna Independent Shorts, Austria
April 2009 – We Edit Life at sound:frame Festival, Vienna, Austria
April 2009 – Work, Rest & Play at Indielisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
April 2009 – Work, Rest & Play at Glimmer Festival
April 2009 – Work, Rest & Play Migrating Forms Festival (NYUFF), New York, USA
March 2009 – Zemos98, Seville, Spain
February 2009 – Work, Rest & Play at Rotterdam Film Festival, The Netherlands
January 2009 – Work, Rest & Play at Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart, Germany

2008
December-May 2008/9 – Three works at Fundacio la Caixa Gallery, Spain
November 2008 – SPNM hosted concert at Kings Place, Kings Cross, London, UK
November 2008 – Work, Rest & Play at Invideo, Milan, Italy
October 2008 – Work, Rest & PlayCork Film Festival, Ireland
September 2008 – Work, Rest & Play at Experimental Film Video Festival, Seoul, Korea
June 2008 – Work, Rest & Play at Sonar, CCCB, Barcelona, Spain
May-July 2008 – People Like Us Retrospective Solo Exhibition at alt.gallery, Newcastle, UK
May 2008 – live solo concert, reinterpreting the works of Daphne Oram (BBC Radiophonic Workshop), Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, UK
March 2008 – Skew Gardens at Curzon, Soho, London, UK
March 2008 – Concert with Ergo Phizmiz at Sightsonic, York International Festival of Digital Arts – National Centre For Early Music, York, UK
January 2008 – Work, Rest & Play, London Short Film Festival, UK

2007
November 2007 – Live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s Screen Play, as part of the Wire 25 anniversary series, London, UK
October 2007 – Touch live event, Balham, London, UK
June 2007 – Bilbao Copy Your Idols conference, Spain
May 2007 – 3 Screen video premiere of Work, Rest & Play at Millennium Galleries, Lovebytes International Festival of Digital Media, Sheffield, UK
February 2007 – Session for Mixing It, BBC Radio 3

2006
November 2006 – Story Without End at Encounters 12th Annual International Short Film Festival, Bristol, UK
November 2006 – The Remote Controller at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain
November 2006 – Story Without End at Fundacio La Caixa. Mediateca, Barcelona, Spain
October 2006 – Story Without End at La Blanche Nuit, Paris, France
September 2006 – Story Without End at Exis Experimental Film and Video Festival, Seoul, Korea
July 2006 – Story Without End at Miguel Dias Vila Do Conde ISFF, Portugal
June 2006 – Story Without End at Sonar Cinema, CCCB, Barcelona, Spain
June 2006 – BOOTS – Live collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz, Isle of Wight, UK
May 2006 – Story Without End at European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Austria
April 2006 – Story Without End at Britspotting, Berlin, Germany
April 2006 – Live at Casa Da Musica, Porto, Portugal
March 2006 – Story Without End at Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK
March 2006 – Story Without End at Visual Arts Ipswich, Ipswich, UK
February 2006 – Story Without End at Club Transmediale, Berlin, Germany
January 2006 – Live at Le Cube, Paris, France
January 2006 – Live at Flatpack Festival, Birmingham

2005
November 2005 – Live at Other Cinema, ATA, San Francisco, USA
November 2005 – Live at UC Davis, Davis, California, USA
November 2005 – Live at Leeds International Film Festival, UK
October 2005 – We Edit Life at Nulle Part Ailleurs Production, France
October 2005 – Live at Experimentaclub in Madrid, Spain
September 2005 – Live at Etrange Festival at Forum Des Images, Paris, France
July 2005 – Live at Optronica at The National Film Theatre, London, UK
June 2005 – Live at Mission Creek Music Festival, California, USA
April 2005 – The Remote Controller at Britspotting, Berlin, Germany
April 2005 – The Remote Controller at Femme Totale, Dortmund, Germany
February 2005 – We Edit Life and The Remote Controller at AHRB Centre for British Film and Television, London, UK
February 2005 – We Edit Life at Cinilingus, Belfast, UK
January 2005 – The Remote Controller at Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart, Germany

2004
December 2004 – Live concert as part of Christian Marclay’s Sounds of Christmas installation at the Tate Modern, London, UK
November 2004 – The Remote Controller at Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival, Brazil
November 2004 – The Remote Controller at Tromsø Kunstforening, Norway
November 2004 – The Remote Controller at Festival International du Film Independant, France
November 2004 – The Remote Controller at INVIDEO, Milano, Italy
October 2004 – We Edit Life and The Remote Controller at Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds, UK
October 2004 – The Remote Controller at Backup Festival, Weimar, Germany
October 2004 – Live at Michael Tippett Centre, Bath, UK
September 2004 – The Remote Controller at Seoul New and Film Festival – Seoul, Korea
September 2004 – Live at LEM Festival, Barcelona, Spain
August 2004 – The Remote Controller at Chicago Underground Film Festival, USA
August 2004 – Live at Studio 04 Festival, Oslo, Norway
June 2004 – We Edit Life at The Music Hall, Shrewsbury, UK
May 2004 – Live Session/broadcast on Mixing It, BBC Radio 3
April 2004 – Live at Toronto Images Festival, Canada
March 2004 – Live at Virginia Film Festival, USA
March 2004 – Live at New York Underground Film Festival, NYC, USA
February 2004 – Live at First Anniversary of 2003 FACT, Liverpool, UK
January 2004 – The Remote Controller at Hanger, Barcelona, Spain
January 2004 – The Remote Controller at Rotterdam Film Festival, The Netherlands

2003
November 2003 – Live collaboration with Matmos at Work, Work, Work, Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco, as part of Matmos’s artist installation, USA
November 2003 – Live and artist talk at Sample Culture Now, Tate Modern, London, UK
October 2003 – The Remote Controller at Oslo S-, Oslo, Norway
October 2003 – We Edit Life at Wheels Instead of Hooves, Newcastle, UK
October 2003 – Live at City of Women, International Festival of Contemporary Arts Ljubljana, Slovenia
October 2003 – Live at Dissonanze Festival of Electronic Music and Digital Art, at MACROl, Rome, Italy
September 2003 – The Remote Controller at Kino Central, Berlin, Germany
September 2003 – Live at The Pompidou Centre, Paris, France
July 2003 – The Remote Controller and We Edit Life,Radical Entertainment season, ICA, London, UK
June 2003 – Live at Le Fresnoy, Studio National Des Arts Contemporains, France
April 2003 – Live performance at Cut & Splice (Sonic Arts Network), ICA, London, UK
March 2003 – Live POL, Frankfurt, Germany
February 2003 – Live Club Transmediale, Maria am Ostbahnhof, Berlin, Germany
January 2003 – Session for John Peel, for BBC Radio 1

2002
November 2002 – Live at Avanto Festival at Kiasma Centre, Helsinki, Finland
September 2002 – Live at Sound Unseen Festival at The Walker Center, Minneapolis, USA
June 2002 – Live performance with Jim Thirlwell’s Baby Zizanie, South Bank Centre’s David Bowie Meltdown Festival, Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, UK
May 2002 – Live at ETHER Festival (evening curated by myself) Purcell Room, London, UK

2001
December 2001 – Live at Dysfunktional Beats at 93ft East, London, UK
November 2001 – Live at Laptops Live at the ICA, London, UK
November 2001 – Live at Futuresonic, Manchester, UK
October 2001 – Live at This Is Not Art Festival, Newcastle (Au) and Sydney Opera House, Australia
June 2001 – Live at London Musicians Collective’s Tenth Annual Festival, Purcell Room, London, UK
June 2001 – Live collaboration with Matmos at Sonar Festival, Barcelona, Spain
May 2001 – Live at Catalyst/Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast, UK
April 2001 – Live at EMAF, Osnabrück, Austria
March 2001 – Live at Lovebytes Festival, Sheffield
March 2001 – Live on Mixing It, BBC Radio 3, Dingwalls, London, UK
February 2001 – Live in association with The Wire magazine, Lux Cinema, London, UK

2000
December 2000 – Live in association with The Wire magazine, Cube, Bristol, UK
December 2000– Live in association with Warp Records of London, Numero Festival, Lisbon, Portugal
November 2000– Live at Burning Bush, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland
October 2000 – Live at Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media (FCMM), Canada
May 2000 – Live at Brooklyn Experimental Music Festival, NYC, USA
April 2000 – Live at Komedia, Brighton, UK
June 2000 – Live at TransEuropa 2000, Hildesheim, The Netherlands
March 2000 – Live at Exit Festival, Creteil, France
June 2000 – Live at Sonar 2000, Barcelona, Spain
February 2000 – Live with Don Joyce of Negativland at Brussels 2000, European City of Culture Festival
January 2000 – Live at Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF), USA

1999
October 1999 – Live at Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden
October 1999 – Live at Nottingham Expo Festival, UK
September 1999 – Live at Ars Electronica with members of Negativland and Barbed, Linz, Austria
August 1999 – Live at Festival of the Regions, Enns, Austria

1996
September 1996 – Live at Dutch Electronic Arts Festival (DEAF), Rotterdam

January 2, 2016February 13, 2022

Watch Nothing Can Turn Into A Void

Now available for online viewing! The documentary about People Like Us.

British artist Vicki Bennett takes you on a roller coaster-ride with her art project People Like Us. In performances, videos, collages and music, her amazing editing techniques and sense of humor leave you flabbergasted and enthusiastic at the same time. People Like Us is like free-zone where appropriation meets alchemy, humor meets social critique and the boundless imagination meets reality.

A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2015. 58 min. Produced by trapartfilm.com
Placed here for reference/viewing purposes only. If you would like to screen it contact jakob AT trapartfilm.com or carl AT trapartfilm.com

Download at UbuWeb

August 30, 2015August 30, 2015

NOTHING CAN TURN INTO A VOID to screen at Fylkingen, Stockholm

Nothing Can Turn Into A Void, the doc film about People Like Us will screen in Stockholm, Sweden on 26 November at 7pm
at Fylkingen, Torkel Knutssonsgatan 2, 118 25 Stockholm, Sweden
Two films by Carl Abrahamsson. TRAPART FILM, Sverige 2015.
Introduced by Carl Abrahamsson
Entrance: 100/80 kr (medlemmar & studerande)

NOTHING CAN TURN INTO A VOID
– AN ART APART: PEOPLE LIKE US
British artist Vicki Bennett takes you on a roller coaster-ride with her art project People Like Us. In performances, videos, collages and music, her amazing editing techniques and sense of humor leave you flabbergasted and enthusiastic at the same time. People Like Us is like free-zone where appropriation meets alchemy, humor meets social critique and the boundless imagination meets reality (so called).
58 mins. A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2015.

ONCE THE TOOTHPASTE IS OUT OF THE TUBE
– AN ART APART: CHARLES GATEWOOD
American photographer Charles Gatewood started out in the 1960s as a young man with dreams of showing the world the radical cultural developments that were going on in his country. He met many of the iconic instigators of change and documented them for posterity. As the decades passed, Gatewood drifted more and more into a personal expression of sexual subcultures, both in America and abroad. His powerful photos of pioneers within the tattooing- and piercing scenes helped pave the way for the movement that was to be called “Modern Primitives”. It’s a classic example of when art, and in this example, specifically photography, merges with its general environment and takes on new forms that are impossible to stop. Or, as the San Francisco based photographer himself describes it: “Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can’t put it back”.
58 mins. A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2015.

June 21, 2015March 3, 2022

Nothing Can Turn Into A Void

NOTHING CAN TURN INTO A VOID – an hour-long doc film about People Like Us is now completed and available. If you are a festival or event organiser and wish to screen this film please get in touch with the creator Carl Abrahamsson direct by contacting jakob AT trapartfilm.com or carl AT trapartfilm.com. If you have previously booked People Like Us for a concert and are interested, please get in touch with us direct through our Contact page. You can also watch this movie for free courtesy of our friends at UbuWeb, or watch below.

British artist Vicki Bennett’s work within the project called “People Like Us” takes you on a journey into a world where literally anything can happen. Using her skills as an editor and a great sense of humor, she lets you roam through a world of imagination filled with contrasts and chance encounters between the past and the present. In performances, video work, music and collages, Bennett conveys that nothing is really what it seems. For more information, please visit: Trapart Film

Screenings so far:

October 2015 – Huset, Copenhagen
November 2015 – Brighton Cinecity Film Festival
November 2015 – Fylkingen, Stockholm
January 2016-ongoing – UbuWeb
July 2016 – Norberg Festival, Sweden
October 2016 – Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn
November 2018 – Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo
March 2022 – Kimball Auditorium, Walla Walla, US

April 14, 2014January 12, 2015

SHUTTER – solo exhibition

14 February – 7 March 2014 (Preview 13 February 5-7pm)
Leeds College of Art Blenheim Walk, Leeds, UK

Shutter
Shutter is a new audio-visual exhibition by film and sound collagist Vicki Bennett that enables us to peer into a parallel cinematic world that exists between the edits, when we are not looking at the screen. http://www.leeds-artexhibitions.co.uk/?p=1180
The exhibition consists of three a/v video works (one projected and two on video monitors) and nine prints. There is also an edition of 20 of two of these prints.

“The Big Sleep” [2014] Video (19 mins, 12 secs)
Sleep deficient actors drift in and out of consciousness.

“Blink” [2014] Video (1 hour, 35 mins, 39 secs)
Every frame missed while watching A Nightmare on Elm Street.

“Dreaming” [2011] Video (4 mins, 16 secs)

Nine 12×12 inch B/W and Colour Giclee Prints

VICKI BENNETT “SHUTTER”

“Shutter” is a new audio-visual exhibition that enables us to peer into a parallel cinematic world that exists between the edits, when we are not looking at the screen.

Actors aren’t seen to rest a lot in films, considering people on average sleep 8 hours a day. More often than not, feature films contain a stream of attention-grabbing imagery and noise, and if the mood does slow down there is still dialogue, music and other distractions.

In feature films we don’t see the real-time flow of everyday life, we don’t see the actors queuing, watching TV, reading a book, sleeping. Nor do we witness the mundane – we see the James Bond car chase but no stopping off to eat a panini. Reality can be brought back into film by revealing actors in their normal, uneventful moments. Actors need to sleep as well. Where do they go after a film has ended? What do we miss when we blink while watching a movie? What is it really like on the other side of the screen? This exhibition addresses these subjects and attempts to take us to these places.

2 editions of 20 (below) – purchase from our shop

Bio

Since 1991 Vicki Bennett has been working across the field of audio-visual collage, and is recognized as an influential and pioneering figure in the still growing area of sampling, appropriation and cutting up of found footage and archives. Working under the name People Like Us, Vicki specialises in the manipulation and reworking of original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film and radio.

People Like Us have previously shown work at Tate Modern, The Barbican, Centro de Cultura Digital, Maxxi and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. In 2006 Vicki was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. The ongoing sound art radio show ‘DO or DIY’ on WFMU has had over a million “listen again” downloads since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb. https://peoplelikeus.org/category/biography/

Documentation – Setting up and Preview night

January 6, 2014March 22, 2023

NOTATIONS UK Tour 2013 Travelogue

Here’s an entertaining, informative (we hope) one-hour video travelogue of our recent Notations Tour.

Featuring performers Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, M.C. Schmidt, Philip Jeck, Jaap Blonk, Steve Noble, Wobbly, Mark Sanders, Tomomi Adachi and Jennifer Walshe. Oh, and People Like Us. Also, tour producers Richard Whitelaw and Lee Etherington make appearances.

http://soundandmusic.org/node/8760
https://peoplelikeus.org/2013/notations-tour/

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013

Leeds NOTATIONS – video excerpts

Thanks to those that attended Leeds NOTATIONS at Hyde Park Picture House as part of Leeds International Film Festival on 16 Nov 2013 – here are two edits with M.C. Schmidt, Tomomi Adachi and Wobbly. Thanks to Tusk and Sound & Music!

NOTATIONS Leeds Hyde Park Picture House w/ M.C. Schmidt, Tomomi Adachi & Wobbly on Vimeo.

NOTATIONS Live at Leeds Hyde Park Picture House w/ M.C. Schmidt, Tomomi Adachi & Wobbly. Film by Vicki Bennett on Vimeo.

November 19, 2013November 21, 2013

Manchester NOTATIONS – video excerpts

Thanks to those that attended Manchester NOTATIONS at Kraak on 14 Nov 2013 – here are two small edits from the evening with M.C. Schmidt, Jennifer Walshe and Wobbly. Thanks to Tusk and Sound & Music!

NOTATIONS TRAILER Manchester w/ M.C. Schmidt / Wobbly / Jennifer Walshe. Film by Vicki Bennett on Vimeo.

Notations Trailer, Manchester with M.C. Schmidt, Jennifer Walshe & Wobbly. Film by Vicki Bennett on Vimeo.

November 3, 2013November 21, 2013

Newcastle NOTATIONS – video excerpts

Thanks to all who came to Newcastle NOTATIONS on Halloween, here’s a small excerpt of the evening performed by Rhodri Davies, Mark Sanders & Bill Orcutt. Thanks to Tusk Music and Sound & Music!

Notations Live at The Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle UK 31/10/2013

Next stop Manchester on 14 November with M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), Wobbly & Jennifer Walshe. peoplelikeus.org/2013/notations-tour/

This one below is recorded direct from the desk and is matched with the original film of NOTATIONS.

NOTATIONS TOUR ARCHIVE Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle w/ Mark Sanders, Bill Orcutt & Rhodri Davies.

October 5, 2013April 5, 2022

WE ARE NOT AMUSED

“We Are Not Amused” – the second of our two films made for Animate Projects and Channel 4 TV which was screened on 5 September 2013 is now available for viewing:

We Are Not Amused. A film by Vicki Bennett [2013]

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.

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

Screenings
August 2015 – uSurp Zone5 Festival, London
March 2015 – Ann Arbor Film Festival
November 2014 – Screening at Other Cinema, San Francisco
August 2014 – Screening of We Are Not Amused at Sao Paulo 25th International Short Film Festival
May 2014 – Screening of We Are Not Amused at Oberhausen Film Festival, London, entered for the International Film Category competition
November 2013 – Underwire Festival, London
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