People Like Us

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.

At present is working on a commission ("in.site") for The Lux in London, for an online a piece about the benefits of keeping archives not just in the past, but available to the present. In September 2003, Vicki performed a concert at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and also took part in the symposium, Sample Culture at the Tate Modern.

Vicki also has a weekly radio show, "DO or DIY" on Wednesday evenings on WFMU in New York.

People Like Us?, Peoplelikeus