Working under the moniker People Like Us, artist Vicki Bennett has been creating and distributing audio-visual work across multiple platforms since 1992. Her extensive output spans CD, DVD and vinyl releases, radio broadcasts, live performances, gallery installations, 360° immersive environments and online media. Vicki treats collage as a form of contemporary folk art—rooted in mass media and technology—championing its democratic, shared nature. Central to her work is the belief that everything is interconnected, rendering the notion of artistic ownership or originality both absurd and unnecessary. Through the act of collage, she opens up expansive, unexpected outcomes that exceed the sum of their parts.
Since 2002, the majority of the People Like Us back catalogue has been freely accessible online. Vicki is an advocate of the gift economy, highlighting that for many artists, free self-distribution can generate greater reach and impact than traditional publishing channels. This approach alleviates the pressures of production costs, while ensuring long-term availability. The discography and filmography of People Like Us are generously hosted by UbuWeb.
Over her career, Vicki has produced over 50 audio recordings and more than 40 video works, released on labels including Illegal Art, Rough Trade, Soleilmoon Recordings, Discrepant, Sonic Arts Network and Touch. Her long-running radio show DO or DIY has been broadcast on New York’s fiercely independent WFMU since 2003. Her video work has been shown internationally at venues such as Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, BFI, Barbican, ICA, V&A, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Sonar (Barcelona), MAXXI (Rome), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis) and Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico City). Works have also been broadcast on Channel 4 and featured in sessions for John Peel and Mixing It.
People Like Us has been commissioned by organisations including Arts Council England, Barbican, ACCA, BBC, WDR, Deutschlandradio, PRS Foundation, a-n, Great North Run, Sound and Music, Animate Projects, AV Festival, RML, Sonic Arts Network, Forma, LUX and Lovebytes.
Vicki has held seven solo exhibitions and participated in over 20 group shows across prominent international venues, including the Venice Biennale, MAXXI (Rome), HMKV (Dortmund), Hatton Gallery (Newcastle), Sheehan Gallery (Walla Walla), La Scatola Gallery (London), alt.gallery (Newcastle), Vitrine (London), Engramme (Quebec), University of Greenwich Galleries, Edinburgh Printmakers, Pallant House (Chichester), Millennium Gallery (Sheffield), and Hallwalls (New York), among others.
Her work has been discussed in numerous publications such as Sounds Like Silence – 4’33’’ Today (Spectre Books), The Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Cutting Across Media (Duke University Press), The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Design, Incredible Machines, Sensations of History (University of Minnesota Press), and Here To Go – Art, Counter-Culture and the Esoteric. She has also contributed to The Wire, including a feature in their “Collateral Damage” column (2012), and has entire chapters devoted to her in Kenneth Goldsmith’s Duchamp Is My Lawyer (Columbia University Press) and Carl Abrahamsson’s Different People (Trapart, 2021).
People Like Us has been reviewed or profiled in The Wire, Rolling Stone, Frieze, The Guardian, NME, Time Out, Sight & Sound, Film Comment, The Scotsman, The Independent, BBC Online, Bizarre, Record Collector, Metro, XLR8R, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Baltimore City Paper, and more. Interviews include The Observer, Filmmaker Magazine, Found Footage Magazine, Wired, a-n Magazine, RadioWeb MACBA, Sound and Music, and multiple features in The Wire.
Her radio interviews include Late Junction, Soundproof (ABC), WDR 3 Open Sounds, Cutting Up The Cut Up (BBC Radio 4), PM and Twenty Minutes (BBC Radio 3), and North by Southwest (British Council).
She has also curated a variety of events and publications, including First Person, Fourth Wall (2020), Optimized! (WFMU, 2016), Concert of Collage (Encounters Festival, 2015), Radio Boredcast (AV Festival, 2012), and Nothing is New, Everything is Permitted (2010).
Notable works include Notations, a touring film for live improvisation (TUSK/Sound and Music, 2013); two films for Channel 4’s Random Acts; Citation City (2015), an AV performance inspired by Walter Benjamin; Nothing Can Turn Into A Void, a documentary (2015); No One Is An Island (WDR, 2016); and The Mirror (2018), an AV performance and album ranked No.8 in The Wire’s Albums of the Year. Vicki also produced video content for The The’s 2018 comeback tour, and was part of the New Voices programme from Sound and Music, and received an a-n Artist Bursary in 2019. Her radio commission I Can Fly aired on WDR in 2020.
In 2020, she premiered two new works at her solo exhibition First Person, Fourth Wall, as Hallwalls Artist in Residence (HARP). The following year saw the touring of Gone, Gone Beyond, an immersive multi-screen and multi-speaker AV installation across venues including nyMusikk Oslo, SPILL Festival, ACCA Brighton, and London’s Barbican.
In 2022, she presented MIND MAPS: The Art of Vicki Bennett at Sheehan Gallery (USA) and Orfeó Lleidatà (Spain), and Gone, Gone Beyond was screened at Gray Area, San Francisco. Her 22-hour radio piece 108 aired via Radio Arts Zone, and she performed with Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez at The Wire‘s 40th Anniversary. She also produced a new radio work Changing Your Mind for Deutschlandradio and a mixtape for BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction. The lathe-cut vinyl Rhapsody in Glue (with Ergo Phizmiz) was released in November 2022.
In 2023, she launched a successful IndieGoGo campaign for the new live AV performance and album The Library of Babel, premiering at a three-day residency at Café OTO, London. A retrospective 2-CD set Sharity! Selected Works of People Like Us followed in April.
In 2024, People Like Us released a new album COPIA, created music videos for The The, Soft Cell and Marc Almond, and debuted a widescreen AV installation Mise en Abyme at Museu de Aveiro/Santa Joana in Portugal. Currently in development is Khroma, a new 360-degree work for RML CineChamber.
So far in 2025, People Like Us continues work on Khroma, alongside creating live visuals for Soft Cell’s performances of “Torch” and “Purple Zone”. Vicki is also collaborating with Kevin Hamilton (University of Illinois) on a text-based media project.
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Shorter Bio – Artist Statement
Filmography
Exhibitions and Editions
Selected Performances and Screenings
Commissions and Awards
Talks, Lectures
Discography
People Like Us on bandcamp
