The high art of collaging: PEOPLE LIKE US

This really great interview was recorded by Heinrich Deisl last summer when I played at donaufestival. It will be broadcast tonight:

https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20260308/831278/People-Like-Us-im-PortraetSo.

8.3. , 20-21:00: The high art of collaging: PEOPLE LIKE US in Ö1 Time-tone portrait
As part of the new, three-hour time-tone on Sunday from 19:00 to 22:00 today with full program dedicated to International Women’s Day:


British media artist and radio producer Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us is a pioneer in audiovisual performances. Since 1991, she has been working with material found from films and old vinyl records and uses methods of collage and sampling to create sound and visual worlds that re-connect our media presence.

Profound archival knowledge, among other things, about British popular culture, on the one hand, and a distinctly humorous approach, on the other hand, are characterized by her creations. In 2006, she was the first artist to be given unlimited access to the BBC archives.
At donaufestival 2025, People Like Us presented the Austrian premiere of their current AV work “The Library of Babel”, based on the story of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, a principal representative of the so-called “. Magical realism.

In this radio portrait, we traverse her work for the Prelinger Film Archive, the archive of Britain’s first electro-acoustic composer Daphne Oram, collaborations with radio host John Peel and the band Negativland, and her ‘DO or DIY’ series for non-commercial radio WFMU
Vicki Bennet is a representative of artistic DIY – do it yourself. She follows the approach of “Sharity”: a combination of “share” and “charity” as well as the name of a current album by People Like Us.

Infos + Playlist: https://oe1.orf.at/…/831278/People-Like-Us-im-Portraet
30 days of listening on the Ö1 site or on ORF Sound https://sound.orf.at/radio/oe1

Tom Comitta and Vicki Bennett Discuss People’s Choice Literature

On Saturday June 7th at noon, author Tom Comitta will discuss their new book  People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted & Unwanted Novels on the Edendale Library Zoom at 11 a.m. PST with legendary UK sound collage artist Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us.

Yesterday Tom and the book got a massive writeup in the New York Times!!  
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/books/review/peoples-choice-literature-tom-comitta.html

Tom based the two halves of People’s Choice Literature on a nationwide poll of the elements that Americans claim to prefer most in a novel, as well as those they like least. Giving the people exactly what they want, The Most Wanted Novel is a fast-paced thriller evoking page-turners by Dan Brown and David Baldacci, in which a California woman teams up with a hunky FBI agent (with a tragic past) to solve her brother’s kidnapping, getting drawn ever deeper into a tech tycoon’s apocalyptic ambitions. Then, in an epic synthesis of what nobody wants, The Most Unwanted Novel is an epistolary Christmas novel set on a near-future Mars, where elderly aristocratic tennis players scour the globe for lost love, venturing from arctic wastelands to the dark caverns of the macabre, featuring sentient robots, talking animals, and a hundred-page collection of horror stories along the way. A wild ride!

Oscillation: Tuned Circuits

Online and Brussels Mill, Belgium
29|04|2021 – 02|05|2021

Four day festival in Brussels taking its name from radio pioneer Daphne Oram. The festival will also broadcast audio via its website regardless. Featuring talks, concerts and workshops from People Like Us, Catherine Lamb, Daphne Oram, Farida Amadou, Lucretia Dalt, Goodiepal & Pals, Áine O’Dwyer, Jessica Ekomane, Jonáš Gruska and Lukas De Clerck. Online and Brussels Mill, 29 April–2 May.

Here’s an interview conducted by Henry Andersen of Oscillation Festival Vicki Bennett about process.

People Like Us will have a special one hour audio mix broadcast on the radio, and you can watch The Mirror online via their website, for the entirety of the festival.

https://oscillation-festival.be/