Laurie Anderson Returns to Providence for FirstWorks

Monday, October 17, 2011

Tracey Minkin, Features Editor

laurie anderson

A lifetime of shaking things up: Laurie Anderson

One of today's premier performance artists arrives in Rhode island this month to share her latest work as part of FirstWorks' 2011 Festival.

Laurie Anderson will bring Delusion, a powerful and personal multi-media meditation on identity and memory to The Vets on Saturday, October 22, as well as be in residence in Rhode Island from the 21st through the 23rd.

Anderson has continued to pioneer in performance as a visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, vocalist, and instrumentalist in her celebrated career. She took time to talk about Delusion, Providence, and even Facebook with Tracey Minkin as she prepares to return to FirstWorks.

When Delusion premiered a year and a half ago, you said that the piece was a departure for you. Can you elaborate on that?

Everything I do is not so much like the last one, I think, for other people. Delusion is stories, pictures, music. From that point of view it does go back to the bigger things that I've done that have images in them. For a time it was too expensive to do pieces like that, but it's faster, better, cheaper technology now. It works better. So I'm going back to using some imagery.

That's a huge amount of fun, making three-dimensional movies, not with glasses, but projecting onto surfaces.

You trained in the visual arts, in sculpture. Do you feel that the presence of the Rhode Island School of Design makes Providence a different kind of town from others, as a performing artist?

Absolutely. It's huge. RISD is really big in other cities. There's a big impact of people from RISD in the New York scene. It's a great art school. It's a powerful engine.

RISD is struggling currently with evolving into a more digital, technology-driven world. What are your thoughts on this?

I think there should be a lot of scrapping between generations of artists! They are starting to use very sharp digital tools. But it can also be very shallow and silly, being worshipful of new ways.

I never wanted to be a tech artist. It was just stuff that I used. Of course they're my tools and so on, but I work in stories, and the artist thing is to tell a good story. It has been for 10,000 years. That suddenly you're just using this stuff makes it easy or good? It's like saying, 'What kind of typewriter do you use?'

You have to be really careful about this singing the praises of that stuff. It can really get old.

For many years you've brought technology to live performance. Now, technology has created whole universes that are virtual, for musicians and artists. Do you investigate the computer world, or do you like your technology old-fashioned, on a stage?

I've done CD-ROMs that I made in the mid-'90s. I love doing that. I used to design sets that way, virtual sets, and build them from that. I have a couple of projects that are in that realm. I love Second Life and all that. I think it's got a lot of potential.

You've created voices and personalities on stage in your work throughout your career. How do you feel about the proliferation of personalities, avatars, in social media spaces like Facebook?

I think everyone should have at least one avatar. It's dreary to be the same voice. You hear yourself talking and think, 'please, get another voice.' I want to shoot myself!

I hope that by creating selves, we might consider ourselves artists, and I hope that there's a time when the whole world will be artists, if they feel like it. Although in Facebook, for example, you're supposed to make yourself more interesting. It's an ad for yourself. That's not the goal for artists.

But at the same time, some people in the process of making their Facebook realize, 'This is really fun, I could get carried away!' And they become artists.

Laurie Anderson will speak on Friday, October 21, 4pm, in presentation/lecture at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Martinos Auditorium, at Brown University. Free admission. Saturday, October 22, she presents Delusion at 8pm at The Vets. Ticket's $18-$48, available at www.vmari.com or at 421-ARTS. On Sunday, October 23, she will participate in Coffee & Conversation from 9:30-11am at the RISD Chace Center, Metcalf Auditorium. Continental breakfast begins at 9:30, conversation begins at 10am. Tickets $10 For more information, go to http://www.first-works.org, or call 421-4281.