Vicki Bennett
The Doors of Perspection
29 July 2011 – 04 September 2011
@ Vitrine Gallery, Bermondsey Square, SE1
Vicki’s latest exhibition ‘The Doors of Perspection’ runs up until 4th September and concentrates on her new digital collage work. It is currently being displayed 24 hours a day, in Bermondsey Square, SE1 at The Vitrine Gallery.
The exhibition is unique is its style, where Bennett has used a technique to expand famous movie scenes, into panoramic collages. The idea being to create a still image based on what was originally dynamic movement. It’s a strange vision to see films that you know well, expanded into a panoramic image – capturing a panning camera into a landscape scene. The 2001: A Space Odyssey was incredible.
She also operates under the guise of ‘People Like Us’ (a.k.a Vicki Bennett), some of you will probably recognise her video work or at least portions of the original source material, which she manipulates with techniques such as rotoscoping into the audio-visual collages she is famous for. Since the 1990’s she has released several albums and toured many live audio-visual shows.
The exhibition launch night, Thursday 29th July, also included a special retrospective of her short films and visual pieces, from her earliest work with the Prelinger archives, excerpts from “Genre Collage” through to the commissions from the Great North Run Cultural programme in 2009. The project which inspired her to create these latest works (many of which can be viewed via Ubuweb – see link below).
Bennett’s work tends to speak for itself, but this event allowed those present to get a behind the scenes insight into the inspiration for these pieces, why they were commissioned and also what message, if any, they are meant to convey.
The screening took place at the indie cinema, SHORTWAVE in Bermondsey Square (opposite The Vitrine Gallery). An intimate venue in which to host the show, which allowed the audience to drift in and out at will throughout the evening, as the films were to be shown on a loop. (Thanks to Liberty for manning the loop!)
In the bar, musical accompaniment was provided by Osymyso and Mainwaring & Jurgensen.
Speaking to Vicki before the event started, she mentioned that at present she is using a lot more ‘feature film’ footage as opposed to the found/archive footage of her earlier projects, which I feel will really broaden the scope of her cut and paste style and possibly increase it’s appeal to an even wider audience.
We would certainly recommended passing through Bermondsey and checking it out for yourselves. Two of the prints – ‘Streetwalking’ & ‘In Retrospect’ have been made available to purchase too, please see details below.
The Doors of Perspection is curated by Iain Pate. Commissioned by Touch.
MORE INFO:
People Like Us – website
People Like Us on Ubuweb – website
People Like Us – “Horror Collage” – Saturday 3 September 2011 @ Southbank Centre – website
Modern Empire – purchase prints of Vicki Bennett’s work – website
Shortwave Cinema – website
Vitrine Gallery – website
Touch – website
