People Like Us at Berwick Film Festival

By Jon Corbett on September 24, 2010 in Film

Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett (AKA People Like Us) has been earning her mind affirming stripes in the world of audio visual college and has fast become one of its leading figures.

For almost 20 years Bennett has animated and recontextualised found footage collages with witty and dark portrayals of popular culture, sprayed with a healthy bout of surrealistic wackyness.

Vicki has shown work at – amongst others – Tate Modern, The National Film Theatre, Purcell Room, The ICA, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre, Sonar in Barcelona and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

She has also performed radio sessions for BBC’s John Peel, Mixing It, and also CBC, KPFA and does a regular radio show on WFMU, which to date has had almost 4 million realplayer hits.

September 2010 saw the launch of her new commission, The Keystone Cut Ups, at The Maltings Theatre for the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival.

Exploring the relationships between early silent comedy and early avant-garde cinema, TKCU is a live show performed by Bennett and experimental music artist Ergo Phizmiz.

Kyeo: What inspired you to put TKCU together?

VB: We have always been very aware of the cross-fertilisation between humour and the avant-garde, and our own work really does exist at the meeting point of the two. We wanted explore the roots of our own art forms (film and recorded music) sourcing from avant-garde and comedy film from the early 20th century.

We created a new piece of work from these lists, creating associated new music compositions, which also used well known music with similar contextual themes. We worked in tandem, with me in London editing the films and Ergo in Bridport creating the music. Despite different towns, we spoke every day about what we were sourcing from and this very much reflects in our collaboration – one cannot say that just I did one then and Ergo did another. We both are responsible for it as one thing.

Kyeo: What can you tell me about the new performance?

VB: I don’t know what people expect from this, thankfully – I only know what we’ve brought to this, that this has been a very intense two months creating this 45 minute piece from scratch and we hope to share that immersive experience and pay homage to the material within that means a great deal to us. Oh and we want to be totally delightful and lovely too, naturally.

We also wish to reflect and expand upon rather than just try and emulate – we are surrealist artists ourselves with a very playful and sometimes dark sense of humour, we didn’t need to adopt what these artists were doing sometimes 100 years ago, when their approach is independently much like ours.

The audience may not get what they expected but they may get more than what they didn’t expect!

Kyeo: You’ve had your works shown at Tate Modern and the Sydney Opera House. How does Berwick hold up as a setting?

VB: The Maltings Theatre is totally perfect. I honestly can’t think of a better interior, with a great atmosphere.

It has been a luxury to be able to rehearse our piece for two days before performing it in the space and everyone has been really accommodating. You’d be really surprised how non-accommodating things can get, and I’ve been playing live for 15 years now – many famous venues are a nightmare to deal with but this has really been great and we’d like to thank Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival for taking a chance on a piece of work that could be seen as challenging, but ultimately I think proves itself to be engaging, and doesn’t just preach to the converted.

We’d also like to thank Iain Pate for curating this commission; his total understanding and engaging in where we’re coming from, and maybe where we’re going too, ha ha.

Kyeo: Where do all the TKCU visuals and audio come from?

VB: The moving image part of the performance consists of a dual screen – two moving image edits running side by side, simultaneously. The music is sourcing from popular, classical and light music, which are referenced (“sampled”) into new compositions incorporating instruments and new lyrics. The subjects we came up with that were cropping up (excuse the pun) a lot were hats, statues, orchestras, performing of music, machines/cogs, water, chess/cards, magic, space/the moon, and also lots of people running around in the dark with lightning storms!

The last subject became a song about the actress Thelma Todd who starred in some Marx Brothers Films and Laurel and Hardy, she came to a sticky end and was involved with gangsters – the lyrics are about her and it’s set to the music “Dancing In The Dark”. The best version I know is by Bert Kaempfert. On the screen are moving images of her dancing with Grouch Marx while all hell breaks loose on the accompanying screen.

And some of the well known songs rearranged and woven into new compositions like Blue Moon, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Magic Moments, Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo, Dancing In The Dark, and a piece of music where the title evades me, but for any Marx Brothers fans I only have to say “ta ta ta ta tum tum, ta ta ta ta tum tum, ta ta ta ta tum tum tum…” and Chico will go and play it on the piano.

Kyeo: You’ve worked with Ergo before. Do your talents compliment each other?

VB: Yes, we have collaborated for 6 years. We have made a previous joint live performance, made a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s “Screen Play” and we made a podcast series on WFMU called “Codpaste”. We also recorded a 7″ single called “Withers in the Waking” released on Touch.

Kyeo: What happens next for Vicki Bennett? Have you still got the WFMU show?

VB: I do my WFMU radio show “DO or DIY” every Wednesday evening between June and October on WFMU’s Summer Schedule, it’s worth mentioning that my radio show aims to mix humorous/popular with difficult/avant-garde music and sound art to show that there is no such thing as “popular”, or rather no such sound as popular.

I am in the present and intend to stay here. That’s what this project has told me to do, hang around here and stop thinking of the next project and your work is much better. But since you asked we are going to look into releasing a DVD and album based around this project.

I am also developing an installation with Forma for next year and I’m touring my current solo live set called “Genre Collage”.

Ergo has just released a new album called “Things To Do And Make” on the Care In The Community label, and has been touring his current opera called “The Mourning Show”.

Ergo also releases other people’s music on his netlabel “Chinstrap Music”.

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