Vicki Bennett, under the name People Like Us, has been smash-and-grabbing from the shallows of cultural waters for eleven years. Over the course of more than ten solo albums, as well as dozens of contributions to compilations and collaborations with like-minded artists, dadaist samplings and reshuffling of cultural oddities have been recurrent themes. Likewise, the use of 'found' and recontextualised recordings into entirely new soundscapes has played a major role, exposing simultaneously the ridiculous and the sinister. People Like Us expose a surreal world of bad connections and faulty communications, where presenters, interviewees, lost stars and found sounds become trapped in a misfiring loop of reference and repetition. Bellowing a gagged love song in a stifled spew, this mean mash of psychobabble is a window into a world of monotony induced trance.
Using modern tools as afforded by the advent of desktop video/audio manipulation and editing, People Like Us create new landscapes where once were merely soundscapes; the two disciplines are seamlessly melded together. There is no limit to the possibilities for new emerging narratives in the visual and aural world of People Like Us, narratives spoken in a voice unique in the world of mixed-media appropriated art.
www.peoplelikeus.org
Thursday
24 April, 8pm
(BBC broadcast 3 May)