Since 1991, Vicki Bennett has been producing and manufacturing CDs, radio, and A/V multimedia under the name People Like Us. By animating and recontextualising found footage collages, Vicki brings a sense of both wit and a darkness, to her view of popular culture, combined with a surrealistic edge.
Vicki has produced work for, amongst others, Tate Modern, The National Film Theatre, Purcell Room, The ICA, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre, Sonar in Barcelona, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the BBC and Channel 4. She has also performed radio sessions for the BBC’s John Peel, Mixing It, and also CBC, KPFA and many more in the US. There have been features in The Observer, The Wire, NME, BBC website and Bizarre Magazine. People Like Us have been commissioned by The Arts Council England, The BBC, Sonic Arts Network, Forma, LUX and Lovebytes amongst others.
Vicki views sampling and collage as ‘folk art’, sourced from the palette of contemporary media and technology, with all of the sharing and cross-referencing obligatory to a populist medium. Embedded in her work is the premise that all is interconnected and that claiming ownership of an “original” or isolated concept is both arrogant and redundant.
On the 15th of January 2021 via an online streaming festival ‘Imaginary Network Topologies 2021’ Vicki screened ‘Fourth Wall’, a new site-specific, wide screen movie that reflects upon the illusion of separateness. The title addresses the experience of illusory duality constructed by the mind, which is replicated through the lens of the camera, the stage, and the surface of the page, movie or computer screen. Through the viewing, cutting and editing of hundreds of pre-existing movies, Vicki searches for multiple and parallel narratives and collages these together to create a flowing stream of consciousness, attempting to breakdown this wall and reveal what she perceives as a greater reality and oneness beyond relativity.