The Queen of Performance in Norway

Towards the end of June 2011, Laurie Anderson took a slight right on her way home from the Middle East and headed for the North. She stopped by the tiny little town of Harstad in Norway, walked right into the Kulturhus and told some adventure stories by herself on stage, accompanied by accidental fiddling and random toying around on some keyboards in-between - just another day in the life of the Queen of Performance.

She also shared some words of wisdom regarding, among others, the reason why she does not use Facebook:

Luckily, some pro photographer happened to be around and shot a couple of pictures - like this one:

"No more friends." Laurie Anderson performing 'Transitory Life'

June 23rd 2011, Harstad, Norway
photo by hennum.foto.com

On the Return of the Cultural Ambassador

In June 2011 Laurie took 'Delusion' to Israel where she seems to be a welcome returning guest.

(FYI, here's "Laurie Anderson" written in Hebrew characters - took some time for me to find them in the texts but then it made my research process for reviews and all kinds of media coverage a lot easier:

לורי אנדרסון

- yeah, you should read this from right to left.)



For starters, let's see a review with photos and videos of a public conversation with artists Yali Sobol and Sigalit Landau (relax - the URL I included is the English translation of the original text):

If somebody asked her to design a religion,
she would make it all about snow.

Laurie Anderson in Tel-Aviv, Israel, June 2011
photo by Assaf Alboher

Here's an interview from an Israeli tv channel (probably named NANA10). The show is called 'London & Kirschenbaum', and the conversation took place on June 16, 2011. The interviewers were Yaron London and Assaf Amdursky. Laurie also gave the microphone over to Fenway Bergamot for a while during the interview, and gave a short demonstration of the sound of her filtered violin:

The concert in Mann Auditorium left its mark on the Israeli audience. Here's a vast bunch of reviews, translated into English via Google Translator:

• Bedtime Stories - text by Guy Hajaj, photos by Dudu Azulaj
• Hallucinatory Mushroom - text by Yuval Kfsoto, photos by Dana Shimoni
• A Mesmerizing Storyteller - text by Idan Hguel, photo by Meir Luger
• Bored to Death - text by Zahi Yeshurun
• More Theatrical Than Musical - text, big photos and a video
• Less Tight and Perfect Than Others, But Much Human - text by Elliot, photo by Orit Pearls (?)
• Not for Music Fans - a review and a photo in Haaretz

... well, maybe they missed the stage bombs or so.


Anyway, there was at least one enthusiastic audience member who didn't mind to share some videos taken in a tender night:

The very last things you say in life...

Notes from a dream diary:

Thinking of you under the dandelions:

A story on the Moon and Fenway's section:

A story from Iceland:

The finale:

The encore:

From A'dam with Luv

Laurie Anderson's Delusion was part of this year's Holland Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Reviews of the show were mixed - some would have fancied more music, and some were just bored and wished for a little less Laurie Anderson clones in the audience. Some of the lucky ones took a walk with Laurie in the streets of Amsterdam:

Jeroen Visser and Laurie Anderson

Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 2011

Some of the other lucky ones had a close encounter of the third kind with Fenway Bergamot himself sitting in a shopping window of de Bijenkorf (big warehouse in Amsterdam's Dam Square):

Fenway Bergamot, wearing a Chaplin hat and a HollandFestival jacket,
chatted with Lieven Bertels (artistic coordinator of HollandFestival)

Fenway Bergamot happily announced his intention of 

being candidate for the next President of the United States

Throwing an approving glance

at his enthusiastically cheering audience outside the shopwindow.

All photos by Mnemosyne

And, finally, a video to break your heart, too: an excerpt of the Dandelion scene from Delusion in Amsterdam:

"Alguma vez amas-me verdadeiramente?"

PSA: For the sake of accuracy, I'm trying to cover all the (more-or-less) European venues which got graced by Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' during the summer of 2011.


If you read Portuguese, here is a review of 'Delusion' in Porto from June 2011. Text by Marta Ribeiro, along with some photos by Victor Fernandes. Like this one:

"That's a really good dog. I like that dog."
'Delusion' by Laurie Anderson, June 5, 2011
Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal 

Retrospect 1.0: The Updated Posts

First of all, I decided to update some of the previous posts. I'm doing it this way since I wouldn't want to break up the one-post-one-topic consistency which, more or less, characterized the posts of Files on a String in the past. It's not handy, it's not convenient but it's for the sake of logic (and, um, proportion, whatevs). So, here is the list:

• 'Delusion' in the UK: Read - a review of 'Transitory Life' and the public conversation in Brighton (UK) added

• 'Delusion' in Germany: Read. Look. (Part Two) - one review from Dresden, two more from Kassel / Hofgeismar, plus a video with interview excerpts recorded in Kassel added

• El sistema de l'ase i la pastanaga - a photo gallery from Girona (Spain) added

• Λόρι Αντερσον - a photo gallery from Athens (Greece) added

Thank You, 16 Yeses.

I just want to say thanks... so, thanks.

Thanks to those who voted. I think I know some of you. What an honour.

And to you whom I don't: it's an even bigger pleasure for me and hereby I'm encouraging you to feel free to say hi anytime.

Your yeses did mean some kind of support / encouragement for me and that it's really worth it to start this over. Which is really not a problem since there's such a big amount of great stuff lying around, waiting to be discovered (and, um, appropriately, um, appreciated).

Soon.

xxxxoooo

Look. Look.

Welcome, Visitor.

You are visiting a blog that, despite its ambitious first year, got abruptly abandoned some months ago.

If you happened to have gotten here while looking for an up-to-date selection of information sources collected from around the world wide web on Laurie Anderson (the multimedia artist. Not the writer who, by the way, has an extra middle name - Laurie Halse Anderson - no, this is not her), and if you think the world needs another Laurie Anderson clone a blog like this to be revived, please let me know by casting your vote in the poll on the right side.

Lvoe,

M.

Λόρι Αντερσον (UPDATED)

That bunch of characters in the title is the Greek translation of "Laurie Anderson" - just my sad attempt to be in style since Laurie performs 'Delusion' in Athens tonight ("one of my favourite places in the whole world", she says). In a recent interview made by ESC TV (Greek tv show) she recalls her memories of working on the 2004 Olympics ceremony in Athens, and talks about 'Delusion' and her alter-ego Fenway Bergamot:

UPDATE: a bunch of photos of 'Delusion' in Athens where Fenway Bergamot's section had an extra reference to the then-current protests on Athens' Syntagma square as a special one-time update (thanks for the vigilance, timeiswide!).

'Delusion' in Athens, Greece
Badminton Theater, June 8, 2011
photo by Alexandra Katsarou 

More Talk Radio from Spain

Today's edition of Fluido rosa ( = "pink fluid"), Radio 3 Espagna's magazine about music and contemporary art features a different cut of the interview aired couple of days earlier on Radio 3, only this time with no Spanish overdubbing (and with additional parts not heard in the previous programme).

For starters Laurie performed two viola solos, then talked about 'Delusion' and about the making of 'Nothing in My Pockets', her audio diary created for French radio in 2003 (there's also an excerpt of it in the programme). Towards the end of the interview she also touched upon something that sounds, hm, quite electrifying to Mnemosyne's (and probably to some of this blog's readers') ears, namely:

"I think probably I'll put my archive on the web at some point. I'm just trying to figure out now how to do that - both the visual and the audio stuff."

(Laurie Anderson, June 2011)

Laurie's part is between 42:00 and 1:05:00 into the programme:

El sistema de l'ase i la pastanaga (UPDATED)

Click to the picture below for a short video coverage of Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Girona, Spain:

the donkey-and-the-carrot system in Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion'

Girona, Spain, June 2011

UPDATE: bel bosCk Studio!'s surrealistically stylized photo set from Girona (click to the photo):

It's always raining in her dreams

Ilusión o engaño?

"It's in-between."

(Laurie Anderson's answer to the question in the title, which is "illusion or deception?"

in English translation and refers to the meaning of 'Delusion')

Listen to this morning's interview with Laurie Anderson on Radio 3 Espagna (it's partly mostly :( overdubbed in Spanish):

'Delusion' in Germany: Read. Look. (Part Two) (UPDATED)

Again: the titles in bold take you to the original articles (written in German), the English titles after the = signs link to their translation into English by Google. All links open in new windows.


Dresden:

• Traum ohne Deutung und mit Transformationen
  = Dream Without Meaning and with Transformations
  (Matthias Zwarg / Freie Presse)

• UPDATE: Begegnung mit der Performance-Künstlerin Laurie Anderson vor ihrem Auftritt im Festspielhaus Hellerau
  = Encounter with Performance Artist Laurie Anderson before Her Appearance at Festspielhaus Hellerau
  (Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten)

Kassel / documenta Archiv:

• Laurie Anderson zeigt "delusion"
  = Laurie Anderson Presents 'Delusion'
  (Hessischer Rundfunk online)

• Visionen und Erinnerungen - Laurie Andersons "Delusion"
  = Visions and Memories - Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion
  (Kurt U. Heldmann / 24pr.de - with photos under the title 'Fotostrecke')

• documenta-Archiv feiert Laurie Anderson - Pionierin der Träume
  = Documenta Archive Celebrates Laurie Anderson - Pioneer of Dreams
  (Gaby Sohl / die tageszeitung)

• Auftritt Laurie Anderson
  = Laurie Anderson's Performance
  (Dirk Schwarze - with photos of the public conversation of May 29th)
  

Laurie Anderson in Hofgeismar / Kassel, Germany, May 2011

(photo by Dirk Schwarze)

• Wo die Sterne funkelten
  = Where the Stars Twinkled
  (Mark-Christian von Busse / Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine Zeitung)

• Große Themen, kleine Episoden, kluge Gedanken
  = Big Issues, Small Episodes, Intelligent Thoughts
  (Göttinger Tageblatt)

• UPDATE: Auf der dunklen Seite des Mondes
  = On the Dark Side of the Moon
  (Gaby Sohl / die Tageszeitung)

• UPDATE: Laurie Anderson und wir in Kassel
  = Laurie Anderson and Us in Kassel
  (framboise / Katzenblog - another review and more photos from the public conversation of May 29)

• UPDATE: Mediaartbase – Das erste digitale Kunst-Archiv
  = Mediaartbase - The First Digital Art Archive
  arte tv's reportage, featuring interview excerpts with Laurie Anderson, saved for posterity on my YouTube channel:

'Delusion' in the UK: Read (UPDATED)

Reviews of 'Delusion' from Brighton, UK:

• Reviews: Brighton Festival – Laurie Anderson – Delusion
  (Andrew Kay, Latest7 Magazine)

• Laurie Anderson Mused on Memory & Then Broke New Ground in Sound @ Brighton Festival
  (Howard Young / The Brighton Magazine - this article is a blend of a review of the performance and the public conversation with Laurie Anderson the night before the concert)

• Laurie Anderson, Brighton Dome Concert Hall, May 26
  (Simon Lancaster / The Argus)

• Minimalist Magic: Laurie Anderson at the Brighton Dome, May 2011
  (Ian Hodgson)

• What do John Cale & Laurie Anderson have in common?
  (Louise Halvardsson)

• UPDATE: Laurie Anderson: Delusion and In Conversation (Gig-going Adventures Contd.)
  (Gavin Burrows)

What Laurie Anderson Sees in the Mirror...

In her own words of wizdom: Laurie Anderson reflects on her appearance in last Saturday's edition of Guardian*.



* Along with a ten-year-old portrait? Really??

"Make your travel plans now."

I'm not sure if there exists a phrase like that in English but I can't help saying it: if the following didn't exist, it should have been invented.

What the hell, you're asking, Dearreader?

Laurie Anderson as the voice of a planetarium. For real. Holy cr*p, this is so her. Me wants to go to Chicago, I mean, right now (hoping the show is still running). (No, of course it's not in the programme anymore.)

This video is a trailer for Time/Space, Adler Planetarium's animated show on the past and the future of the Cosmos, produced in 2005, narrated by Laurie Anderson:

(extra: a press release of the show from a previous version of Laurie's website)

When the Musician Meets the Explorer

"For me, art is about being able to see something or hear something in a really concentrated, focused way. It's not the stuff you put into museums. [...] To me, art is about being able to pay attention to the ocean sound that we live in, to start with, and the incredible things that we're seeing. And artists draw your attention to those things."

(Laurie Anderson at the Explorers Club in NYC, April 2011)

The Explorers Club uploaded their video of 'Music & Exploration – The Avant-garde Meets Exploration', a conversation between Laurie Anderson and David Rothenberg, recorded on April 25th, 2011:

The topics of the discussion were (amongst others): why animals sing, Laurie's concert for dogs in Sydney, researching dolphins' "talk", Lolabelle's illness and music therapy (alas, she has recently passed away :( ), the Estuarium ("it's great taking a dog to a fish museum" - L. A.), Laurie's rage against mp3 ("a horrible solution [for compressing audio data], crushing music to nothing"), a moving story about parrots' musical memory in a Vietnamese village; regret, image interpretation and self-expression - and many more.

'Delusion' in Germany: Look (Updated)

Laurie Anderson performing 'Delusion'

Berlin, Germany, May 2011

photo by Barbara Muerdter / Popkontext

More photos from Berlin:

• by Barbara Muerdter at Popkontext
• by Charlotte Jäckel at [030] Magazin Berlin
• by Michael Huebner at Flickr
• by Frank Hoensch at Gettyimages
• NEW: by Christian Behring

'Delusion' in Germany: Read (Part One)

Reactions to Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Germany so far: the titles in bold take you to the original articles (written in German), the English titles after the = signs link to their translation into English by Google. All links open in new windows.


Berlin:

• Still und klar: Laurie Anderson in der Volksbühne
  = Calm and Clear: Laurie Anderson at Volksbühne
  (Volker Lüke / Der Tagesspiegel; roll down to the Pop section in the article)

• Historischer Applaus – Laurie Anderson in Berlin
  = Historical Applause - Laurie Anderson in Berlin
  (Julia Zange / SoundsLikeMe; for the time it's available only in Google's webcache)

• Laurie Anderson fragt: Habt ihr mich jemals geliebt? (Für diesen Multimediamurks jedenfalls nicht)
  = Laurie Anderson Asks: Did You Ever Really Love Me? (Well, for This Multimedia Hodge Podge, Not a Lot)
  (Markus Schneider / Berliner Zeitung)

• So war's: Laurie Anderson
  = That's How It Was: Laurie Anderson
  (Charlotte Jäckel / [030] Magazin Berlin)

Hamburg:

• Träumerei zu Geigenklängen
  = Rêverie for Violin
  (Dagmar Leischow / Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag)

• Welt aus Wörtern
  = World Made of Words
  (Robert Matthies / die tageszeitung)

• Mit Laurie Anderson in eine Klang-Bild-Welt schweben
  = Floating with Laurie Anderson into a World of Sounds and Images
  (Heinrich Oehmsen / Hamburger Abendblatt)

• Eine Pauschalreise ins Bewusstsein
  = All-Inclusive Travel into Awareness
  (Heinrich Oehmsen / Hamburger Abendblatt)
  

• Geschichten
  = Stories
  (mr.boredom / mr.boredom's blog)

• Adieu Verblendung
  = Adieu to Delusion
  (Stefan Hentz / Die Welt)

• Laurie Anderson und ihre Welt aus rätselhaften Bildern und Klängen
  = Laurie Anderson and Her World of Enigmatic Images and Sounds
  (Hamburger Abendblatt)

• Andächtiges Staunen und Lauschen - Laurie Anderson auf Kampnagel/Hamburg
  = Reverently Marveling at and Listening to Laurie Anderson at Kampnagel/Hamburg
  (Holger Kistenmacher / Unser Lübeck)
  

Beruf: _ *

"Ich kann machen was ich will." **

(Laurie Anderson on the benefits of her career choice to be a multimedia artist)

Zdf.kulturpalast's coverage of Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Germany - after Berlin / before Hamburg:

* Beruf = occupation
** "[I] can do whatever [I] feel like."

HHugs.

Poster for Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion'

Hamburg, Germany, May 2011

photo by Mnemosyne

Eine Kulturikone in Krems

A short reportage about / interview with Laurie Anderson in Krems an der Donau, Austria (attention: it's overdubbed in German):

Studiogast bei radioeins

Yesterday Laurie Anderson was the guest of radio eins' studio in Potsdam / Berlin, Germany:

• German-English interview with Laurie Anderson, radio eins (audio length: 15 mins 23 secs)

"Here We Go", She Said (and She Meant It Literally)

"From a program recorded on September 14, 1981, Charles Amirkhanian gets a demonstration of the Eventide Clockworks Harmonizer from Laurie Anderson. The Harmonizer is the piece of equipment that Anderson has used, with such great effect, to lower the pitch of her voice in real time, during her concerts", says the description of Ode To Gravity's September 14, 1981 issue at archive.org.

Before that, the program also features Fenway Bergamot's first ever public appearance at the Nova Convention in 1978 (at that time he was just "a pompous blowhard" (quote from L. A.)). The recording, titled 'Song from America on the Move', a two-part performance piece by Laurie Anderson and Julia Heyward, can be found on the LP 'The Dial-A-Poem Poets: The Nova Convention'; Laurie's part was later titled as 'The Language of the Future' (in 'United States Live I-IV.').

• 00:45 - 07:02 The Language of the Future 

• 07:03 - 09:23 interview

"Deals with the Spiritual Issues..." - the Transcript

Here's the transcript of 'Refiguring the Spiritual', a conversation between Laurie Anderson and the public on the 10th of February, 2011 at Columbia University. (I have already linked the audio recording of the conversation on this blog.)

Only in Case You've Got 25 Minutes. Seriously.

May 1st 2011: Laurie Anderson's dramatic reading of James Salter’s short story, "Raphael" - a trademark andersonite multimedia presentation held amid Julião Sarmento's exhibition "Artists and Writers/House and Home" at the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton whatever blablabla.


Now...

1. Lights off.
2. A [...] of [...] at hand. (You name it.)
3. Play button.
4. Full screen.
5. Enjoy.

Bringing 'Delusion' to the Old Continent

Listen to and read a short interview with Laurie Anderson who prepares for her European tour with 'Delusion':

Meanwhile, on the GRIT...

"I would love "explorer" but on my passport it just says "artist". [...] I try to just be a good journalist, really, and look at what's going on. [...] I'm a storyteller. I'm not tapdancing around, I don't do that. Maybe I'm fooling myself. Hm..."

(Laurie Anderson's attempts of self-description to Laura Flanders, 2011)

Nostalgia, techno humiliation, art and politics, alter-egos as ways of escape, Laurie Anderson's saddest musical experience and many-many more in Laura Flanders' recent interview on GRIT tv:

P. S.: Hm. Looks like the original Talking Stick is still in the hands of Homeland Security.

Hänsel und Gretel in Krems

'Transitory Life' in Krems, Austria, May 2011

photo by Florian Schulte

Hänsel und Gretel gibt es wirklich
Und sie leben in Berlin
Sie arbeitet als Cocktailbedienung
Er hatte eine Rolle in einem Fassbinder-Film
Und nachts sitzen sie da, trinken Schnaps und Gin
Und sie sagt: Hänsel, du ziehst mich echt runter.
Und er sagt: Gretel, du kannst wirklich ein Miststück sein.
Er sagt: ich habe mein Leben mit unserem dummen Märchen vergeudet,
während meine Liebe immer nur der bösen Hexe galt.

Sie sagt: Was ist Geschichte?
Und er sagt: Geschichte ist ein Engel, der rückwärts in die Zukunft geweht wird.
Er sagt: Geschichte ist ein Trümmerhaufen,
Und der Engel will zurückgehen, um die Dinge wieder in Ordnung bringen,
Dinge reparieren, die zerbrochen sind.
Aber da kommt ein Sturm aus dem Paradies,
Und der Sturm weht den Engel zurück in die Zukunft.
Und dieser Sturm, dieser Sturm heißt Fortschritt.

German translation of Laurie Anderson's 'The Dream before'

- as heard in Krems, Austria in May 2011

Thanks, Angelika, for the help!

UPDATED: More from Krems

Two Four more excerpts of 'Transitory Life' in Krems an der Donau, Austria:

First, the frantic instrumental ending of the concert:

And 'Flow', the mesmerizing reprise violin solo:

Fenway Bergamot's first section: a specialized German-Austrian version ("should I buy a second BMW?") of 'Mambo and Bling' - you'll appreciate it especially if you're interested in the German translation of the piece since the video features mostly the subtitles on the background screen:

'Hey Ah', the story of the old Cree Indian, plus Loscha, the 'Ugly One with the Jewels':

UPDATE#2: Here's Donaufestival's official press photo album of the 5th of May - click below for more photos of Laurie's performance:

Laurie Anderson performing 'Transitory Life'

Krems an der Donau, Austria, May 2011

photo by Florian Schulte

Loscha in Krems

May 2011: Laurie Anderson tells the story of the Ugly One with the Jewels in Krems an der Donau, Austria. Along with German translation in the background:

From Krems with Luv

Donaufestival, May 2011

Krems an der Donau, Austria

photos by Mnemosyne

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Music in Poetry. In Photos

PEN Festival 2011: Poetry: The Second Skin

Photo by Beowulf Sheehan

By clicking on the photo above, you can flip through an extensive photo gallery of the Poetry section of this year's PEN Festival. The event, titled The Second Skin, took place on April 29, 2011 in New York City, with the main theme of "exploring the porous borders between poetry and music" - quite suitably to its curator and emcee.

Scenes from 'Delusion'

Detail of Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' postcard set

Photo by Darek J.

Click to the picture above for a photo gallery of the 'Delusion' postcard set: scenes from the performance selected, captioned and signed by Laurie Anderson. Photos taken and kindly provided for the blog by Darek. Thanks a lot!

Storytelling in the North

October 2008: while passing along the shores of Canada on board of Grigory Mikheev (an arctic research vessel), Laurie Anderson tells a story of an old Cree Indian man singing the forgotten song of his fathers':

FYI: This video is an excerpt of the documentary film titled 'Burning Ice', directed by Peter Gilbert.

The whole film is available for free at Snagfilms.

Duh.

Cooking hot dogs via electrocution?

Er, sounds familiar.

The Charlie Rose Interview, 2003

"She does everything. She writes. She paints. She does photography. She sculpts. There's nothing she can't do. She is the absolute perfect person to go up there because she could come back to you and could put it in any kind of media you wanted."

(Lou Reed on Laurie Anderson's artistry-in-residence at NASA)

In May 2003 Laurie Anderson and Lolabelle joined Lou Reed at Charlie Rose's interview table (apparently to everybody's satisfaction). Their conversation rambled from 'NYC Man' (Lou Reed's then-recently released retrospective song collection), through Andy Warhol, to the aspects of the relationship between Lou and Laurie.

(FYI: This video had been hosted by Google and was 'rescued' to YouTube since Google has recently gave up video hosting.)

Current State of Mind of an Universalkünstlerin*

"Today I'm working on a short little poem that I've been thinking about, I have a drawing to finish, and I have a little projection work. This is the kind of hell my life is: doesn't one piece relate to the other one that much. I mean maybe that's great but sometimes it feels little disconnecting. On the other hand, that's just the way things are."


"Do I think art can change the world? I don't have any idea. Politicians can change politics - so can artists? I don't know. I'm a little bit pessimistic at the moment, to tell you the truth."


"[...] "The triumph of capitalism, here it is. Okay. One thing to do: get famous, get rich. That's the game. Good luck and see you later." - That's really harsh, and it's in every field in many ways. Artists are the same thing: we are encouraged to compete rather than to cooperate. And that's not a kind of world I dream of living in."


"I'm a journalist at heart. I like to try to see how things really work-- not make it up, not fantasize. That's a very hard thing to tell a story that is true. It's easy to find a good punchline. But everybody knows that most punchlines smell a little bad... they're clever, okay, but if you really try to tell a story: our lives are so messy. They don't have good punchlines, they don't have ways that they end very neatly. I think a lot of people, myself included, would like to find a way to see the world really clearly, not to somebody's punchline or somebody's story but really how do other people do it."

(Four examples of Laurie Anderson's current state of mind, mid April 2011)

Laurie Anderson @ Canal Street, April 2011

Photo by Christian Lehner

Austrian radio FM4 has recently aired Christian Lehner's interview with Laurie Anderson on the occasion of Laurie's upcoming live appearance at the Donaufestival in Krems-an-der-Donau, Austria: on the 5th of May 2011 she will perform 'Transitory Life', a retrospective collection of her past stories.

The conversation touched on subjects like New York City in the 1970s vs. 2010s, record charts, art and politics, the making process of the 'Homeland' album, the linguistics behind its title, the current state of mind of New York City, last year's concert for dogs in Sydney and the origins of 'O Superman' and 'Another Day in America'.

The Laurie Anderson Spezialstunde** was part of 'New York State of Mind', FM4's interview series "on individuals who set up the Big Apple a little crown". More info on the conversation with the Universalkünstlerin (basically the German translation of the interview) and some photos of the session can be found here.

You can listen to the whole programme in FM4's online archive until the 4th of May:

• New York State of Mind, Issue #3: Laurie Anderson (audio length: 54 mins 8 secs, file size: 49.5 MB)

(FYI: don't worry if you missed the programme in the online archive: stay tuned for a stripped-down-and-cut-and-edited version of the interview here.)




* universal artist
** special hour

Mabou Mines Benefit

Speaking about recent public appearances: Laurie Anderson invited Fenway Bergamot to perform at the Mabou Mines Benefit at Paula Cooper Gallery:

FYI: This is a resized and cut version of the original video by Andy Horwitz, which can be found here.

When the Avant-garde Met Exploration

Read Galfromdownunder's review of a recent public conversation between Laurie Anderson and David Rothenberg at the Explorer's Club.

By the way, David Rothenberg is the guy who made 'Why Birds Sing' (2007), a BBC documentary that featured some enchanting and heartwarming (although, as far as I remember, mildly scientific) theories about birds' singing. Laurie was one of the interviewees, and in this excerpt she tells about her spellbinding concert experience with an owl:

Talking Stick Returned Reproduced

Ha! Looks like the U. S. Government doesn't consider Laurie's batonlike MIDI instrument as a threat to state security* anymore: [a replica of] the Talking Stick is part of I in U / Eu em tu, the retrospective exhibition of Laurie Anderson's oeuvre in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

The Talking Stick in Rio

photo by Alexandra Lima

For more great photos and a description of the exhbition, click to Alexandra Lima's blog (the original Portuguese text is translated into English via Googe Translator).





* FYI: the Talking Stick, originally designed for Laurie's Moby Dick adaptation in 1998, was confiscated by the FBI during a zealous safety measure in 1999.

The Charlie Rose Interview, 2004

"... But the real reason I wanted to walk to Paris [from Milan] was because I was trying to think about how to be free - 'cause that's really the only thing I care about now... Learn to be free from my prejudices, my patterns, my ideas of what I think is 'good' or 'bad' - just trying to not react to them automatically, and to open my eyes and see what I'm really seeing, not just what I think I'm going to see or what I think should be seen."

"I'm trying not to have a goal, but just to think about how it feels to pay attention."

(Laurie Anderson, 2004)

As part of my Google video rescue project, I'm happy to include here my personal favourite interview with Laurie Anderson: as Charlie Rose's guest in May 2004, she talked about (among others) her Japanese garden project, the importance of freedom, her method of 'working', the walking project / audio diary that later evolved into 'Nothing in My Pockets', and she gave a short demonstration of the Pillow Speaker. Plus, at that time she was still being NASA's resident artist. Sigh.

UPDATED: The 'Click' Interview

In today's edition of BBC World Service programme 'Click', Laurie Anderson talks to Colin Grant about adopting and adapting cutting-edge technology in her art, and how she can't bear the compression of mp3. Listen to the conversation in BBC's online archive (please let me know if it gets removed from there so that I upload it to the blog) - Laurie's part starts at 11:06:

• Laurie Anderson at 'Click' (BBC World Service) - April 26, 2011

UPDATE: here you can read an extraction / loose transcript of the interview.

For Japan with Love: the Concert

Relief! Japan Society published their record of the performance by John Zorn, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed (this time supported by a Japanese drummer) at the benefit concert for Japan:

(Hint: enjoy it in its full HD glory on YouTube.)

No Words Needed

'Duets on Ice' in Rio de Janeiro, March 2011: a video by Marcello Dantas and Raphael Lupo:

For Japan with Love: the Interview

"Our set was improvised. You never really know what's gonna happen when you improvise. But I felt like there was definitely a spirit there, that kind-of took over. I don't know if it's conscious or choice-- I don't think those are the right words-- but something definitely magical happened."

John Zorn on the trio of himelf, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed
April 2011

In the following video by Japan Society NYC, Lou Reed, John Zorn, Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass are discussing their musical selections for the benefit concert for Japan, plus sharing some of their fondest Japan-related memories. Watch and learn about Lou Reed's first computer calculator watch and why Laurie's Japanese s-s-sucks:

A Fearless Afternoon of Non-Rock*

The trio of Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed and John Zorn got together again for another freeform improvisation as part of a 12-hour-long benefit concert marathon for Japan at the Japan Society in NYC. The result is a one-of-a-kind blend of three strong identities from three different musical worlds; this time supported by a huge Japanese drum (and drummer).

"Lou Reed w/Laurie Anderson & John Zorn just slowly melted my face off & fed it back to me in hole where my face used to be!! I love it!"

Tweet by Quasimario

(I'm afraid this randomly shot screen capture turns out to be the only visual proof of the event... the (record of the) web stream proved to be a disaster for numerous reasons, sorry.)


I needed to chop the audio into two parts since at one point the sound engineers of the web stream thought that the static white noise / guitar feedback generated by Lou's instrument was an error so they turned the volume down in the 14th minute into the concert. (Anyway, the audio files needed to be edited at several points since the webcast kept breaking - in the end I simply cut those short gaps off... a butcher's job. :( I hope it still sounds flawless though.)

• Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed and John Zorn at the Japan Society, April 09 2011 - part one (audio length: 13 mins 26 secs, file size: 18.5 MB)

• Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed and John Zorn at the Japan Society, April 09 2011 - part two (audio length: 8 mins 47 secs, file size: 12.1 MB)

* a paraphrase of Lou Reed's words on their trio before their performance at the Montréal Jazz Festival in Canada, 2010

In One of Those Abstract Trances :)

"My sKiRt is ShorT, mY HAir BIG,LauRie'S tIe is Hooked UP tO A SynClAvieR and The 5 Blind Boys ( of whom ThEre ARe Only 3) siNG LAAINGUIDGE, IS A VIRUS! fun to see this again."

(Joy Askew on the 'Language Is a Virus' video from 'Home of the Brave'

Facebook, 2011)

'Moby Dick' Questions and Answers

Dallas, TX, 1999: the creators and performers of 'Songs and Stories from Moby Dick' talk about the making process of the piece and provide a clinical demonstration of the Talking Stick, a huge batonlike MIDI instrument Laurie created as a support for her love letter of Melville's book:

The 'Moby Dick' crew:

Anthony Turner - Standing Man
Price Waldman - The Cook, Second Mate, Running Man
Tom Nelis - Ahab, Noah, Explorer
Miles Green - Falling Man
Skúli Sverrisson - bass, pepared bass, samples, percussion
Laurie Anderson - Pip, The Whale, narration + visual design, music and lyrics