DO YOU MISS THE PRESENT?

Do you miss the present? Do you believe everything they told you? Do you ever wonder “What if…?” Is it all really that simple? The fourth and last evening curated by Discrepant for maat Mode 2020 raises more questions and intends to answer them. Using pop culture as a totally malleable concept, the evening’s theme proposes a complete rewrite of the present whilst building on a totally dysfunctional past. Dream and surrealism play a big part in the evening’s proceedings and the cycle is closed with two very special performances by artists who have been quietly subverting the status quo for decades, together and solo, each with their own take on (un)popular culture.

People Like Us
Since 1991, British artist Vicki Bennett has worked across the field of audiovisual collage and is recognised as an influential and pioneering figure in the still growing area of sampling, appropriation and cutting up of pre-existing footage and archive material. Working under the name People Like Us, Vicki specialises in the manipulation and reworking of original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film and radio. Her latest work, The Mirror, which will be presented at maat Mode, is a live audiovisual performance that splices together movie snippets with unique sample-based music which explores the masks we wear represented through the lens. Parallel narratives are used across the screen to depict an ever-changing stream, rather than a singular, fixed being, narrative or moment in time.

“With The Mirror Bennett has proven herself an alchemist of popular music, able to push her source material into fresh and engaging places”. – The Wire

Porest
Porest is the musical and performance outlet of post-American artist and producer Mark Gergis. For decades, Porest has issued a trail of confounding agitprop sound art, post-globalised hate-pop, diabolical radio dramas, and big and small songs. Porest’s blatant embezzlement of human syntax and cultural misunderstanding broadcasts vital mixed messages across all fields, forging carefully re-arranged realities that both avoid and indulge in the inherent trappings of radical art and politics. The live performances integrate Porest’s music, performance and sound into a grand total sum that cannot be unseen. Ongoing collaborations include Negativland, Alan Bishop / Sun City Girls and Aavikko, among others.