CuratorSpace Artist Bursary #17: Vicki Bennett

Under the name 'People Like Us', artist Vicki Bennett has been making work available via CD, DVD and vinyl releases, radio broadcasts, concert appearances, gallery exhibits and online streaming and distribution since 1992. She sees sampling and collage as folk art sourced from the palette of contemporary media and technology, with all of the sharing and cross-referencing incumbent to a populist form.

"As a collage artist combining disparate narratives, the ever-emerging, growing availability and use of AI software appeals, with its creation and manipulation of imagery using keywords and phrases. This resonates with my own methodology of using database content searches and mind maps. Both result in juxtapositions and styles that one would not have thought of, a springboard for new ideas and directions.

My current project will involve developing my skills through learning from a number of artists, writers and technicians with working knowledge of AI (e.g. dall.e, disco diffusion, artbreeder, midjourney and also GPT-3) about how to integrate this with my present digital AV collage work. This includes researching the viability of creating a new touring AV performance, to be later expanded to be a real space 360 immersive cinema work and exhibition.

This project builds on my previous work, including the immersive 360 real-space cinema, Gone, Gone Beyond. This work was a 10 screen / 6 or 8 speaker piece, with seamless wrap around projection and surround sound, and was commissioned by Naut Humon, the founder of immersive theatre project RML CineChamber. It comprised of movie and musical compositions, animated and sample-based, musique concrète collage juxtaposed with filmed and recorded content. The project has been a work in progress since 2017 and was shown for the first time in Autumn 2021 in a feature-length format in venues including The Barbican."

You can find out more about Vicki's projects at www.peoplelikeus.org/2019/gone-gone-beyond

 

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