Laurie Anderson

Outline

Introduction: Her Works and Styles Critique of

TV and other forms of language, national and gender politics

Story-tellers “The Dream Before” Hansel and Gretel history not

progressive The Ugly One with Jewels  cultural relativity Strange Angels life’s unpredictability appreciated as

strange angels

Introduction: Laurie Anderson –her Works MFA in sculpture from Columbia University One of the group of avant-garde artists in New York in 1970’s. Albums

Big Science 1982 (O Superman) Mister Heartbreak 1984 (Sharkey's Day) Home of the Brave 1986 (Smoke Rings, Language Is A Virus) Strange Angels 1989 (Strange Angels, The Dream Before) Bright Red (1994) #195 The Ugly One with the Jewels (spoken word) (1995) Talk Normal (greatest hits) (2000) Life on a String (2001) Live in New York (2002)

Multimedia Works: UNITED STATES LIVE; Natural History, Stories from a Nerve Bible; Songs and Stories from Moby-Dick.

Introduction: Laurie Anderson as a Multimedia Storyteller or Bricoleur

Musical Style: 1. No pretense to authenticity; use electronic machines and

filters to change her voice and looks

2. e.g. 6:20 makes fun of her own music-- Intro to “Smoke Rings” “I seem to count music in a different way from the other musicians . . .“

3. 27:40 introduces her studio and how she produces sound effects

4. Combining Kitsch and art

a storyteller with an allegorical impulse –layers of stories, memories, interest in language and cultural codes

Introduction: Laurie Anderson as a Multimedia Storyteller or Bricoleur

Re. electronic reproduction— her views are different from those of Jean Baudrillard, who

argues that there is no longer reality or the possibility of political actions. promiscuity of media penetration and pervasion. (ecstasy of communication)

McLuhan – artist –can “sidestep the bully of new technology. . . The artist is the man in any field, scientific and humanistic, who grasps the implication of his actions and of the new knowledge in his own time” (Understanding Media 70-71).

E.g. 33:39 “Sharky’s Day”

“Sharky’s Day” Sun's coming up. Like a big bald head. Poking up ov

er the grocery store. . . All of nature talks to me. If I could just figure out wh

at it was trying to tell me. Listen! Trees are swinging in the breeze. They're talking to me. Insects are rubbing their legs together. They're all talking. They're talking to me. And short animals- They're bucking up on their hind legs. Talking.

All of life comes from some strange lagoon. It rises up, it bucks up to it's full height from a boggy swamp on a foggy night. It creeps into your house. It's life! It's life! I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love. Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

Critique (1) “Language is a Virus.” 18:00

Dedicated to the Beat writer William Burroughs who coined the phrase “language is a virus from outer space,”

scrutinizes everyday examples of language-use from pain cries, to performances, to repetitions of TV programs.

relates a terror of communication. A beautiful island with people from TV While “Language is a Virus” and other songs and stories

from United States bemoan the ever-increasing dependence of Americans on technology, each song is marked by Anderson’s sense of irony and humor. (source)

Critique of TV Culture: “Language is a Virus.” I saw this guy on the train and he seemed to

gave gotten stuck in one of those abstract trances. and he was going: uUgh...ugh

TV –showing the same pictures over and over again

everybody on the island was somebody from tv.

Also—film: 5:36 I hate television

Political Critique mixed with Humor: “O Superman”

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice

And when justice is gone, there's always force And when force is gone, there's always Mom

Hi Mom! So hold me, Mom, in your long arms So hold me, Mom, in your long arms In your aut

omatic arms Your electronic arms In your arms

“War is the Highest Form of Modern Art”

Improvisatory performance for custom officers

War “the beauty and elegance of the American strategy of pinpoint bombing”

Reporting in-between opera and the Superbowl.

Beautiful Red Dress –Affirming Femininity 11:43

And asserting the gender inequalities Menstrual cycles: And I've been around the blockBut I don't care I'm on a roll - I'm on a wild rideCause the moon is full and look out baby -I'm at high

tide. I've got a beautiful red dressAnd you'd look really good standing beside it..I've got some beautiful new red shoes and they look

so fineI've got a hundred and five fever and it's high tide.

“The Dream Before” The song –the last part: “History is a pile of debris

And the angel wants to go back and fix things  To repair the things that have been broken But there is a storm blowing from Paradise  And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future And this storm, this storm  is called  Progress. ”

Laurie AndersonLaurie Anderson

“The Dream Before”

How does the song deal with the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel?

They live in a life not as heroic and adventurous as their life in the fairy tale.

Hansel –

1) attached to the witch (why?);

2) Expresses Walter Benjamin’s view of history.

Paul Klee's "Angelus Novus"

Benjamin on Paul Klee's "Angelus Novus"

An angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.” historical change and progress = destruction of the past

Benjamin on Paul Klee's "Angelus Novus"

The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. . . . But a storm is blowing from Paradise; . . . irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, This storm is what we call progress.” Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”

Cultural Relativity: The Ugly One With The Jewels

FULL fathom five thy father lies:  

  Of his bones are coral made;  

Those are pearls that were his eyes:  

  Nothing of him that doth fade  

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.  

And I alone am left to tell the tale.

Call me Ishmael. (the role of a storyteller)

Storyteller in her appreciation of life: "Strange Angels"

They say that heaven is like TV A perfect little world that doesn't really need you And everything there is made of light And the days keep going by Here they come

Well it was one of those days larger than life When your friends came to dinner and they stayed the night And then they cleaned out the refrigerator - They ate everything in sight And then they stayed up in the living room And they cried all night

Strange angels - singing just for me Old stories - they're haunting me This is nothing like I thought it would be.

Reference

http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~jimmyd/laurie-anderson/interpretation/