Welcome to the only official site for People Like Us and Vicki Bennett
Taste the Moment!
On Miracle Nutrition with Hearty White on WFMU: Featuring People Like Us, Gwilly Edmondez and more! Listen here (the show is one hour long) https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/146346
https://cas.illinois.edu/node/2915
Introduction by special guest Hearty White
Inspired by a 1941 Jorge Luis Borges short story, The Library of Babel (2024) explores themes related to the complex interplay of infinity, knowledge, and the cosmic fabric, presented through the metaphor of a vast, seemingly infinite library. In the story, the librarians are isolated, focused on an almost religious or existential quest, struggling to find meaningful texts amidst an overwhelming number of nonsensical or irrelevant books. The library itself has no goals or intentions; a canvas onto which searchers project their quests for meaning. The narrative delves into the angst and crises of those that explore its depths, raising questions about our ability to manage, navigate, and find meaning from vast amounts of information. In her film inspired by the story, artist Vicki Bennett relies on an amalgamation of audio-visual collage and intricate editing techniques to reconfigure, decompose, redirect, and recombine images with sounds that are often already ingrained in audience’s collective consciousness. Rather than adhering to a linear progression of events, her thematic narrative unfolds in layered complexities, offering a fragmented but coherent tale achieved through a blend of various sources and an ‘exquisite corpse’ approach.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Bennett and White on their independent and collaborative creative journeys in seeking meaning, social connection, and joy through the mediums of radio, video, and performance.
Hosted by: College of Fine & Applied Arts. Thanks to Kevin Hamilton.
In conjunction with: Department of Media & Cinema Studies, Department of Musicology, Department of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, Illinois Public Media, School of Art + Design, Spurlock Museum, University Library
“COPIA” by People Like Us (Cutting Hedge SNIP003)
CD & Digital Download
https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/copia
People Like Us, the project of artist Vicki Bennett, announces the release of “COPIA” on June 7, 2024. This album marks the first new musical material since “The Mirror” in 2018, delving into the profound realms of existential collage and sampling, celebrating these forms as expressions of timeless connectivity.
The title “COPIA,” meaning ‘abundance’ and ‘copy,’ reflects the essence of collage and sampling — art crafted not in isolation, but as a connective thread through time and space, linking ideas across generations in a seamless tapestry. By reconfiguring preexisting sounds and images, Bennett highlights the non-dual nature of creation — where distinctions between past, present, and future possibilities blur, revealing a shared foundation beneath. The album marks a return to not just solo works but collaborations with notable artists.
Drawing from the new People Like Us live AV performance, “The Library of Babel,” sampling and edited sound collage, electronic music, combined with Ergo Phizmiz’s lyrics and melodies, “COPIA” weaves and recombines a timeless blend of diverse elements that transcends traditional musical boundaries. This creative process unfolded through the exchange of multitracks across both water and ether. Collaborating with the voices, instruments and editing timelines of Matmos, Hearty White, Gwilly Edmondez, Lottie Bowater, Buttress O’Kneel, Douglas Benford, Irene Moon, Jon Leidecker, and Matt Warwick, the work evolved exquisite corpse-style.
“COPIA” will be available on Bandcamp as both a physical CD and digital download. Accompanying the release, live performances of “The Library of Babel” will continue both in the UK and abroad in the coming months, including potential live collaborations with Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez.
“Bennett has proven herself an alchemist of popular music, able to push her source material into fresh and engaging places. Where some artists hack existing instruments and technologies to create their new sounds, Bennett has circuit-bent the songs themselves.” – Spenser Tomson, The Wire Magazine
“Listening to “Copia” is like hearing music for the first time, as if the concept was completely new. You keep creating art that feels like that first shock-of-the-new you get when you step off a plane after you’ve landed in a new country. Something that wasn’t known, or knowable, somehow appears.” – Charles Powne, Soleilmoon
About People Like Us
Since 1991, People Like Us has been at the forefront of audio-visual collage, opening up endless opportunities to experience results that are more than the sum of the parts. Embedded in her work is the premise that all is interconnected and that claiming ownership of an “original” or isolated concept is both preposterous and redundant. Vicki Bennett’s project serves as a modern-day continuation of the collage tradition, highlighting the interconnectedness of all artistic creation.
For further information, promotional materials, or to arrange an interview, please contact us.
We’ve made an edit of the video that we shot of our Cafe OTO residency, here it is.
Thanks to those of you who managed to attend the event, and all of you who’ve helped fund my IndieGoGo campaign this year, along with our Patreons who help us on a day-to-day basis to pay for our rather steep usage of computer-related electricity power, and Café OTO for being totally brilliant. And of course, my friends, the artists, my inspiration!
Now we will return to making more of our solo performance The Library of Babel (which you see an excerpt of in the above video), continuing to make a new album.
PEOPLE LIKE US Cafe OTO ARTIST RESIDENCY
27 / 28 / 29 OCTOBER 2023
PEOPLE LIKE US | MAGGIE NICOLS | ERGO PHIZMIZ | GWILLY EDMONDEZ | POREST | IRENE MOON | ERIK BUNGER | 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, both solo and in collaboration. The residency includes a preview of the new People Like Us audiovisual performance The Library of Babel.
15 September 2019, 7pm at 21C Museum Hotel, Lexington, Kentucky
The Mirror will screen in it’s theatrical form (ie a stand alone movie, not performance) in Lexington, KY, and although we will not be present our good friend Hearty White will be there to introduce the film.
facebook event
Here’s the archive of Vicki and Hearty White in Week 1 of the WFMU 2019 Fundraising Marathon. Vicki MC-ed for Hearty. Please support this wonderful radio station, who have supported People Like Us with our radio show DO or DIY with People Like Us for over 20 years now. LISTEN HERE!
Our project The Mirror consists of an a/v performance (and sometimes stand alone movie), an album release, a film for improvisers, and 3 new artist commissions where they to respond to The Mirror with a new piece of work. All three artist responses by Dina Kelberman, Porest (Mark Gergis) and Hearty White are now available, so we’re putting them all together online here:
Reflects by Dina Kelberman (December 2018)
Media link: https://dinakelberman.com/reflects
Description: When I thought about the word “reflections” this is what my brain showed me. Something about reflects, reflex, reflection symmetry, shapes, walls, and now that i think about it it’s probably a lot to do with sitting in a tiny room full of corners all day every day. Also laptop symmetry. These might all just be portraits of my laptop.
Bio: Dina Kelberman is an interdisciplinary artist recently transplanted from Baltimore, MD to Los Angeles CA. Kelberman has created original web-based pieces for the New Museum and The Marina Abramovic Institute and has participated in numerous design and photography biennials. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, Art21, NPR, Known and Strange Things (Cole, 2016) and most recently The Focal Press Companion to the Constructed Image in Contemporary Photography (Routledge, 2018) and Olia Liliana’s “An Infinite Seance 3”. In 2018 she was invited to speak at the UbuWeb conference in Athens and the Post-Photography Prototyping Biennial in London. She is currently ranked 5th in the world for Most Lines in Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
We’re pleased to release the last our 3 artist commissions made in response to The Mirror.
The first was by Dina Kelberman, the second was a 50-minute new audio piece by Porest (Mark Gergis) and now we’re presenting a brand new 50-minute audio work by HEARTY WHITE. You can listen here and download at bandcamp.
https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/track/the-mirror-2
(Please note, this is a piece of audio by Hearty White, and the link embed above lists it as People Like Us purely because it’s on our bandcamp page)
Bio: Hearty White lives and doesn’t work in Lexington, KY, birthplace of Richard Hell. His radio non-career spans decades. He loves you in theory. Listen to Hearty White’s WFMU radio show:
wfmu.org/playlists/HA
More info on The Mirror by People Like Us and these artist commissions:
peoplelikeus.org/2018/the-mirror-a-new-live-a-v-performance-by-people-like-us/
People Like Us take over the airwaves for an hour from 3.30pm-4.30pm (UK time) on Resonance FM on Saturday 28 April 2018 on the Splice Festival Festival Radio Show. This coincides with our forthcoming performance at Splice Festival (12 May 2018).
LISTEN HERE:
Continue reading “People Like Us play new work on Resonance FM”
The WFMU Fundraising Marathon 2018 starts today, Sunday 4 March and runs for two weeks. People Like Us has had a radio show on WFMU since 2003 and been played on the station for waaay longer than that. WFMU has supported People Like Us immensely, artistically and gifted us with lots of new friends. It makes our world a much richer place. Two of these friends we will co-host with this coming week. Tune in and please pledge. It’s a great two weeks of the year. The marathon is also great fun. Lots of co-hosting, and lots of marathon prizes to be had. Tune in, and involve yourself.
Wednesday 7 March : 9am – Noon (NY Time) Vicki Co-Hosts with Ken
pledge for Ken’s show: http://pledge.wfmu.org/donate/KF
Listen to the archive here
Thursday 8 March : 7pm – 8pm (NY Time) Vicki Co-Hosts with Hearty White
pledge for Hearty White’s show: http://pledge.wfmu.org/donate/HA
Listen to the archive here