Laurie Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, visual artist and musician. Regardless of the medium, a common characteristic of all her work seems to be the act of storytelling.
Laura Phillips Anderson was born June 5, 1947, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, United States. She attended Mills College in California, and eventually graduated from Barnard College magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, studying art history. In 1972, she obtained an MFA in sculpture from Columbia University.
She performed in New York through the 1970s. Two early pieces, "New York Social Life" and "Time to Go," were included in the 1977 compilation New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, along with works by Pauline Oliveros and others.
She became more widely known in 1982 with the single "O Superman," originally released in a limited quantity by One Ten Records; a sudden influx of orders from the U.K. (prompted by British DJ John Peel playing the record) led to Anderson signing with the Warner Brothers label, which re-released the single. "O Superman" reached number two on the national pop charts in Britain.
"O Superman" was part of a larger stage work entitled United States and was included on her following album, Big Science. Her more recent stage work includes a multimedia presentation inspired by Moby Dick. She starred in and directed the 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave, and also composed the soundtracks for the Spalding Gray films Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box. All of Anderson's albums from the 1980s sold very well despite being labeled "avant garde". Her varied career has even included voice-acting in the animated film The Rugrats Movie. In 1994 she created a CD-ROM entitled Puppet Motel.
She wrote a supplemental article on the cultural character of New York City for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and in the late 1980s hosted the PBS series, Alive from Off Center, for which she produced the short film, What You Mean We?.
One of the central themes in Anderson's work is exploring the effects of technology on human interrelationships and communication.
Anderson has collaborated with William Burroughs, Mitchell Froom, Arto Lindsay, Peter Gabriel, Perry Hoberman, David Sylvian, Jean Michel Jarre, Hector Zazou, Nona Hendryx, David Van Tieghem, and husband Lou Reed. She also worked with comedian Andy Kaufman in the late 1970s (with a romantic involvement hinted at in some of her spoken word performances about him).
Anderson, who rarely revisits older work (though themes and lyrics occasionally reappear) went on tour performing a selection of her best-known musical pieces in 2001. One of these performances was recorded in New York City only a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and included a performance of "O Superman". This concert was released in early 2002 as the double CD, Live In New York, which remains her most recent album release.
In 2003, Anderson became NASA's first and so far only artist-in-residence, which inspired her most recent performance piece, The End of the Moon.
Rumors emerged of a possible new album release in the fall of 2004, but this turned out to be false as Anderson seems too busy mounting a succession of themed shows, as well as composing a piece for Expo 2005 in Japan.
A studio album is now slated for release sometime in 2008.
Nee le 5 juin 1947 a Chicago (Illinois), Laura Phillips Anderson grandit dans un environnement musical. Apres l'apprentissage du violon des l'age de cinq ans, elle se met au piano.
Etudiante en histoire, ses gouts artistiques la porte vers la sculpture et la musique. En 1969, sa premiere oeuvre est une symphonie pour klaxons automobiles. Installee a New York, elle exerce ensuite les metiers de professeur artistique, dessinatrice et critique, tout en participant a des performances liant la musique a l'art contemporain. En 1973, Laurie Anderson presente sa premiere oeuvre a l'Academie de musique de Brooklyn, The Life and Times of Josef Stalin, un spectacle audiovisuel de douze heures soutenu par des pieces de musique electronique produite avec son violon electrifie et modifie (incruste d'une bande magnetique).
En 1981, Laurie Anderson bascule de l'underground new-yorkais a un succes international improbable avec un morceau parle de onze minutes, ? O Superman ?, n?2 en Grande-Bretagne. Signee par Warner, elle publie un album accessible et plebiscite, Big Science. Le disque est en fait une partie d'une performance de sept heures intitulee United States, publiee dans un coffret de cinq albums vinyles en 1985.
Entre temps, Laurie Anderson propose Mister Heartbreak (1984), un album de rock electronique et minimaliste produit par Bill Laswell comprenant des duos avec Peter Gabriel (? Excellent Birds ?) et l'ecrivain William Burroughs (? Sharkey's Night ?). En 1986 sort Home of the Brave, condense plus experimental de sa premiere tournee mondiale. Laurie Anderson compose ensuite la musique du film de Jonathan Demme et Spalding Gray, Swimming to Cambodia (1987).
En 1989, son troisieme album studio Strange Angels, avec la participation de Bobby McFerrin, se revele une parfaite introduction a son univers. Laurie Anderson se consacre ensuite a diverses performances sceniques : Empty Places (1990), Voices from the Beyond (1991) et Stories from the Nerve Bible (1993), avant de collaborer avec Brian Eno et son compagnon et futur epoux Lou Reed sur l'ambient Bright Red (1994). En 1995, le disque de spoken-word The Ugly One in Jewels fait le recit de ses voyages. En 1997, elle participe au single au single caritatif ? Perfect Day ? initie par Lou Reed.
Artiste d'avant-garde associant diverses disciplines comme le mime, le recit, la danse et la video, Laurie Anderson presente le spectacle Moby Dick, dont est tire l'album Life On a String en 2001. La meme annee, deux semaines apres les attentats du World Trade Center, elle se produit au Town Hall City de New York, donnant lieu a un album live l'annee suivante.
Artiste en residence a la NASA, collaboratrice de la choregraphe Trisha Brown pour le ballet O Composite represente a Paris, Laurie Anderson cumule les experiences. En 2005, apres quelques participations aux albums de Lou Reed, elle monte la performance The Waters Reglitterized dans une galerie new-yorkaise. Debut 2010, Laurie Anderson s'installe a la Cite de la Musique a Paris pour y presenter un nouveau spectacle feerique intitule Un delire. En juin, la musicienne fait son grand retour sur disque avec l'album Homeland, le premier en dix ans, suivi de representations a travers le monde.
Copyright 2010 Music Story Loic Picaud
- 2003
