People Like
Us
UK | 30 min. | live audio/video performance | 2004 | Toronto Premiere
“Intelligently bringing out… the hidden reverse of
deceptively simple bits of film, [these] tongue in cheek musical
pastiches are at their most bitingly incisive as the soundtrack
to the films. Don’t miss this great multimedia project as
it hits its stride.” – Rob Young, The Wire
Although archivists might warn that digital technology and historical
preservation don’t quite mix, Vicki Bennett, aka People Like
Us, has made a career out of the latent potential of both. A master
manipulator, Bennett sutures exquisite corpses using old ephemeral
films, worn LPs and the most recent tools of electronic music. She
is the Umberto Eco of Rick Prelinger’s Internet Movie Archives,
lost forever in the library stacks, but still managing to send back
pastiched missives to the outside world – hers are strange
and humorous audio collages.
But it is in her live performances that she really shines. Not
content just to provide visual wallpaper or rapidly cutting strobe
effects, Bennett samples sound and image simultaneously, layering
them into a richly detailed live collage – “a living
cinema.” A visual musician, Bennett pulls everything into
the mix, from industrial advertising to old B-movie Westerns and
mental hygiene films, and comes out with a toe-tapping audiovisual
stew. Heir to Negativland, Mary Shelley and the UK’s tradition
of Scratch Video, she is a unique hybrid in the electronic music
scene, and a busy one. She hosts a weekly radio show on WFMU New
York and releases a record or CD every few months, including collaborations
with Matmos, Wobbly and fan favourite Kenny G. |
