People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz

The Keystone Cut Ups [DVD]

Label: Illegal Art Country: USA

"People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz composed forty-five minutes of music that is simultaneously whimsical and poignant. Once the soundtrack was in place, visuals were assembled around the audio in order to create a stimulating assault on the mind that evokes a sense of the surreal and fantastical. "This work explores the relationships between early silent-comedy and early avant-garde cinema," said Vicki Bennett, the woman who is People Like Us. "Using the influence of slapstick comedy on the Surrealists as a starting point, the pieces, through video-collage, combined with a musical score, reflect simultaneously upon the histories of two distinct schools of cinema, whilst producing a series of new works informed by both silent comedy and 'art' cinema." Soundtracks are no stranger to People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, as they had previously created them for both Hans Richter's Ghosts Before Breakfast and Christian Marclay's Screenplay. But The Keystone Cut Ups turned the creative process on its head by adding visuals to compliment the audio, instead of the other way around."-Illegal Art