Laurie Anderson - aural-visual artist - Interview

Interview, March, 1997 by Philip Glass

Multimedia rascal LAURIE Anderson helped invent the performance art we now take for granted. Here, her avant-garde comrade in arms, composer Philip Glass, talks to ANDERSON as both look into the eye of the future

The avant-garde burns not with the glory of celebrity, but with the Intensity that origInal work produces. Aural-visual pioneer Laurie Anderson has lit some challenging fires, to be sure, and though she would probably laugh at the thought of her work as "glamorous," she would have to admit that new Ideas and a sense of discovery are tantalizing grails worth chasing - a brave mind being the most glamorous thing of all. Who better to speak with this always-provocative artist than her old friend, musical innovator Philip Glass? Here, Interview's Alison Powell hooks up Glass, who was In Brazil working on new projects, and Anderson, who had just returned to New York from Australia. Not surprisingly, both are still setting their compasses for the new frontier.

ALISON POWELL: You two are members of what might be called the royalty of the avant-garde.

LAURIE ANDERSON: Oh, we could do some court gossip about the dukes, only I don't know who's supposed to be in the court. It's a little hard to get a handle on what the avant-garde is any more.

PHILIP GLASS: Yes, and in a way, I think part of the problem is that America as a place is pulling in several different directions. There's a big push to ward doing very conventional work.

LA: The big, splashy kinds of things.

PG: I've also found that, in America, art has become more and more about entertainment and less about experiment.

LA: One change for me has been that I can actually go to Broadway and see things I like. [laughs] And that's frightening. I really enjoyed Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. I loved the dancing. I think there's something to be said for that kind of sexiness, which probably used to be in the avant-garde more than it is now. Maybe part of what's led to the lack of interest in the avant-garde is that it isn't as sexy and dangerous as it used to be. Or as funny.

PG: We're also developing an appetite for technology.

LA: I'm kind of scared of that. There are these whole new groups of art-related things - multimedia shows. Some of them look sort of like art, but they would actually be more at home in a trade show. Things are often done simply to feature the equipment. I think as far as [technology] goes, just in itself, it can be an incredible snooze. But if artists who know what they're doing use it, I think it can be interesting.

PG: I think we're going to go through a learning curve of figuring that out.

AP: Is it still possible to shock people?

PG: Shock is not the issue. I think the real issue is what it has always been: inventiveness.

LA: I agree with that.

AP: What do you think about the fact there's now a whole generation of kids who learned to use computers before they could even sit up straight and may have missed some important conventional processes?

LA: Well, you go into whatever tools are around. That's always been the case. Ten years ago, people went straight into certain kind of keyboards, and it became part of their sound.

PG: That's very true. You know, technology is a lot of things. The grand piano was a piece of technology.

LA: What's so surprising to me is that at the School of Visual Arts [in New York City], you can now take courses in "'Net art." I'm an adviser to some of the students. What's fascinating is that almost all the students in the program are women, which I find so refreshing.

PG: Why do you think there are so many women?

LA: Well, I think part of it is that we grow up to be really good on the phone. And this [Internet] stuff is a lot about how things relate. So if you're going to make a gross, gross, gross generalization about the way men and women think, most women artists I know - myself included - are much more about how things relate to each other rather than needing a beginning, middle, and end. That may be just a bunch of horseshit, but it might be true.

PG: You know, you're right. I do think about structure. I do think about a beginning, middle, and end.

LA: One of the things that [William] Gibson said about CD-ROMs was that you don't know when you've reached the center, the jewel, the point of it all. You're just wandering around. I love things that just wander around.

PG: Isn't the specialty we've developed the combining of sound and image? Or [is it] "discombining" them?

LA: Yes. It's a tricky thing, because - at least for me - it's a process that often doesn't work the way you think it's going to.

PG: Oh, I know. The worst thing is to go in knowing what you're going to do. But I don't think we have that problem, do we, Laurie? [laughs]

LA: Oh, no, the royals never have that problem. That's just the way it is in court.