Kandinsky in Motion

We dig down in the ocean.
Swing up to the stars.
We own the moon and the earth.
We're masters of Mars.
We're bodies in motion.
We embody the spirit of motion.

(1)

Our ancestors cowered in caves
Afraid of the dark and the thunder.
Wrapped up in black magic and rage
They were slaves to their hunger

(2)

Now we fly across mountains in planes
We know all about time and big numbers.
We're bodies in motion.
We embody the spirit of motion.

(3)

I love you with all my heart.
You have my devotion.
I loved you from the start.
We're bodies in motion.
We embody the spirit of motion.

(4)

Ooo the weight of the world. Eternal spin.
Puts a dent in my shoulder.
A burn in my spin.
A burn in my spin.

(5)

Some say the future is crowds
fighting for water and space.
Chaotic and dark and loud,
everything used up and taken

(6)

But I say the future's within
the still point of the mind
Where we escape the bounds of earth
And break the bonds of time.

(7)

If somebody asked me to design a religion
I would make it all about snow.
No good or evil and no suffering.
Just perfect crystals spinning
In ecstasy
   ecstasy
     ecstasy
       ecstasy.

(8)

1: Transverse Line / Wassily Kandinsky, 1923

2: Heavy Circles / Wassily Kandinsky, 1927

3: Mild Tension / Wassily Kandinsky, 1923

4: Colourful Ensemble / Wassily Kandinsky, 1938

5: Upward / Wassily Kandinsky, 1929

6: Grouping / Wassily Kandinsky, 1937

7: Circles in a Circle / Wassily Kandinsky, 1923

8: Fixed Light / Wassily Kandinsky, 1932


Photo source: www.wassilykandinsky.net
'Bodies in Motion' lyrics by Laurie Anderson

Hören ist wissen.

German radio station Deutschlandfunk featured a Laurie Anderson portrait by Christiane Rebmann on the 16th of August, 2010: a collage of excerpts from an interview made in Hamburg during this year's soccer world cup, plus songs from 'Homeland'. Caution: German voice-over. (But hopefully some of you, who can be silent in four (five, six, seven...) languages, will appreciate it.)

• Deutschlandfunk's Laurie Anderson Portrait, Part One (audio length: 10 mins 42 secs, file size: 14.7 MB): 50% baseball stadium, 50% Proust, air and the imperfections in 'Homeland', stories that don't have a simple solution, the heavy quotation marks around 'Homeland', untrue but good stories, the polemic white rap named 'Only an Expert'...

• Deutschlandfunk's Laurie Anderson Portrait, Part Two (audio length: 8 mins 42 secs, file size: 11.9 MB): favourite Saturday clothes and wedding ceremonies, Lolabelle's Jerry Lee Lewis technique, the multitasking human mind, the most stupid e-mail that Laurie received in the last 24 hours, sleeping self turning legal age... just the usual Laurie Anderson stuff ;)

Just because it was there

Laurie Anderson on Canal Street near her studio on a chilly day sometime in the 80s.

Photo by Allan Tannenbaum

The Amazing Future of Sounds

"I think there’ll be really amazing acoustical spaces to listen to things in, and the sound replication will be hyper-real as well."

Read more about what Laurie Anderson predicts about the sounds of the future, her opinion about Facebook and what qualities she treasures in another artists in this gorgeous article in Smithsonian by Jamie Katz.

Stare with Your Ears

...This could be an excerpt from a Laurie Anderson lyrics but it's the title of a documentary on Ken Nordine, le doyen of spoken word, created by Pakistani-Canadian film director Omar Majeed, featuring interview excerpts of - amongst others - Laurie Anderson.

Extra: a recording of the Meltdown Festival that is mentioned in the documentary (created by Laurie Anderson in London, 1997) can be listened to here.

When Thinking of Walking the Dog Goes Psycho

Concentration. Empty your mind.

Let the rest of the world go by.

Hold your breath.

Hold your breath.

Close your eyes.

Close your eyes.

Now imagine you're at the most wonderful party.

Maybe if I fall. Maybe if I fall asleep

There’ll be a party there

Delicious food.

No wonder these puppets

Are always in a lousy mood

Interesting people.

Americans unrooted blow with the wind

Terrific music.

That came from their radios

That came from their gods

Now open them!

But they feel the truth if it touches them

Oh no.

Well, I just want to go home now
and walk
the dog.

The Magnetic North Pole

The Nuclear-Free Future Award celebrates the achievements and facilitates with money prizes people, organizations and communities who are leading the struggle to keep our planet livable for the sake of the coming generations by ending the Nuclear Age.

In the following video from cca. 2001, Laurie Anderson is greeting the recipients of the Nuclear-Free Future Award and recalling the end of the world...

"A long time ago, I'd hitchhiked to the Magnetic North Pole. It took me two months to get there, and there I was camping out by myself and suddenly the sky opened up - green veils, purple veils - it was the northern lights. But I'd only seen pictures of the northern lights, I had never seen the real northern lights. So I was frightened and amazed, and I thought "there's been a nuclear war and I'm the only survivor".

For two days, before I left when a little plane came to pick me up, I was convinced that this had happened. And it was very frightening two days because I was able then to really imagine a world that had been destroyed, and, of course, I was greatly relieved when the plane came, but it didn't change, this vision that I had... because I think that in order to prevent events, whether it's a nuclear war, an explosion, or a malfunction, that it's important to be able to imagine that with its full ramifications, in order to prevent it, and to understand the real amount of devastation.

So, this is why I think that what [those involved with the Nuclear-Free Future Award] are doing here is an amazing and very important event that can change the course of life in our world."

Some things are just

pictures.

They're scenes

before   your   eyes.

Don't look now.

I'm   right

behind

you.

(Photo by Martin Schoeller, 1999. Source here)
('Coolsville' lyrics by Laurie Anderson)

jeffboule FTW

Two excellent AND detailed reviews from Jeff Boule at Looney Tunes CD's, make me wanna meet the guy:

• Homeland - track-by-track review of the album

• Another Day in America - the World Café Live concert - with an extra description of Ron Burger's mellotron-type instrument Orchestron.

"I consider myself as much of a visual artist as a musician, so I have a lot to do."

All her own invention - John L. Walter's article on Laurie Anderson in Eye Magazine. iPh*ne gadgets, tape bow violin, mouth light, chalkboard animations made for 'Delusion', haptics as a possible new art form et cetera.

Lolabelle in da house!

Watch Lolabelle, Laurie Anderson's musical Wunderkind Wunderhund getting into the groove:

(video source: Italian Vanity Fair)

'Talking Animals' on WMNF Radio

Now in this show there are a lot of stories about talking animals; and about people who try to communicate with them.

Talking Animals' guest was Laurie Anderson via telephone on WMNF Radio today. They talked about - of course - Lolabelle, her illness and the music therapy, the dog concert in Sydney, singing trees in Basel (the installation is going to open soon and will be available for three years), music about fish for blind people, 'Only an Expert' and this year's Mermaid Parade on Coney Island where Laurie was Queen Mermaid, Lou Reed was King Neptune and Lolabelle was the Royal Mer-Dog.

The programme is probably going to be available to download later from the show's website but till then, here it is:

• introduction (audio length: 0 mins 38 secs, file size: 0.9 MB)

• part 01 (audio length: 4 mins 16 secs, file size: 5.86 MB)

• part 02 (audio length: 7 mins 22 secs, file size: 10.1 MB)

• part 03 (audio length: 8 mins 19 secs, file size: 11.4 MB)

• the whole show in one, minus intro (audio length: 20 mins 55 secs, file size: 28.7 MB)

A story in an ancient play

PISTHETAIROS

[Aesop's] story tells us that the lark was born
before the other birds, before the Earth.
Her father then grew sick and died. For five days
he lay there unburied—there was no Earth.
Not knowing what to do, at last the lark,
at her wits’ end, set him in her own head.

(A story in an ancient play about birds called The Birds, by Aristophanes
English translation by Ian Johnston)

Key to 'Delusion'

"I'm trying to make a kind of trance-like situation with images and sounds, so that your mind can float and do the jump-cutting that this piece requires you to do."

(Laurie Anderson on 'Delusion')

Click to the picture for a video of Laurie Anderson talking about 'Delusion'.

The American Noise Interview

An in-depth interview on 'Homeland' by Stephen M. Deusner: Fenway Bergamot, the story of the lark, books on economy, the bass on Homeland and many, many more.