Artist Laurie Anderson.Ebru Yildiz /
Temporarily isolated on Long Island, in a house from which she contemplates the trees and the sea, Laurie Anderson (Illinois, United States, 73 years old) says that the chain of change caused by the pandemic is being productive for her.
"I could tell you I hate this," she says over the phone, "but I would be lying."
“Being surrounded by nature is wonderful, but above all I like being with my friends, seeing people.
Many ideas come to me by observing people.
No matter how much I look at them, the trees are not going to give me much information, so I try to be aware of the world ”.
Anderson's creative spectrum is so wide — sculpture, video, essays, music, installations, film — that sometimes the word artist seems to fall short of defining one of the most revolutionary American creators of the last 40 years, a pioneer of the alliance between art and technology.
The ghosts of Laurie Anderson
In 1981, he brought minimalism to the pop charts with O
Superman;
in 1986 he directed
Home of the Brave
, one of the most innovative concert films.
He has reinterpreted pillars of the culture of his country, such as
Moby Dick,
and explored his political arrogance in the show
Habeas Corpus
, based on one of the Guantánamo prisoners after 9/11, imprisoned and tortured for years until he was found innocent.
His collaborations include John Cage, Nam June Paik, Don DeLillo, Kronos Quartet or Lou Reed, his partner until his death in 2013. All his work has a common root, telling stories beyond the format he chooses to represent them.
The artist, who used a William Burroughs phrase as a refrain for one of her songs (
Language Is A Virus
), continues to use language to resist the social effects of another great virus.
Conversation, an activity on which she has focused during these months, is the vehicle that will make her be present (telematically) today at the International Festival of Arts and Culture of Castilla y León (FACYL), in Salamanca.
The conversation is also the basis of his radio show,
Party in the Bardo.
In it, the guests —Marina Abramovic, Arto Lindsay, Anohni… - talk about music and exchange impressions about the disconcerting historical moment in which we are immersed.
According to the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
, the bardo is a period of transition in which the deceased have to find their way to the afterlife.
It is a period that causes a lot of uncertainty and fear in people.
That is why it occurred to me that a party could be a good image to face this journey.
Don't get lost in the midst of your fears: talk to people, ”explains Anderson, a practitioner of Buddhism, who in 2019 participated in
Songs From The Bardo
, an album recorded with composer Jesse Paris Smith - daughter of Patti Smith - and the Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal.
“Music is right now a good way to observe reality.
You don't have to listen to it only when you feel good, ”he says, and then reveals that he is writing an opera and working on new songs.
It does not seem that the distance with her city has blocked it.
“I go to New York as much as I can.
A very special atmosphere is being generated there.
As there are no more tourists, it has become a city for those who inhabit it, something that had not happened since the seventies.
It is a beautiful time for New Yorkers.
Parties are held daily on the Hudson Docks.
On Sundays, for example, people gather there to dance tangos.
People are living in the present like never before.
It is a good time to forget about globalization and think about what your place in the world, your home means ”.
With the presidential elections just around the corner, the artist will participate in several actions that the RuckUs collective will carry out during the fall.
"The Chinese and the Russians have so many and such great interests in my country that they should be able to vote," he says wryly.
“But above all, one thing must be made clear: the Trump Administration is not on the right, it is fascist.
We find ourselves in a political situation that goes beyond the emergency.
We cannot keep repeating ourselves, 'how could this happen?'
There is no longer any doubt that it has happened and it is being an experience that has lowered the smoke to many of my countrymen ”.
Anderson, who is also finalizing a short story book and writing several lectures on music for Harvard, insists he is in no rush to return to the old normal.
“Everything was going very fast in my life.
Answering emails, traveling, doing this, finishing that… I was running out of the possibility of enjoying the time.
With so much hyperactivity, everything that makes that way of life so of the XXI century disappear will seem fine to me ”.
