Moon Rocks
Laurie Anderson has always been a little out there. Maybe that’s why she was
tapped as NASA’s first artist in residence
One woman show: Laurie Anderson in Switzerland

By Brian Braiker


July 9 - If you know Laurie Anderson at all, it’s probably through her fluke
1981 hit, “O Superman,” from her experimental pop album “Big Science.” But
the classically trained violinist and avant-garde multimedia artist has been
working consistently over the past 20 years and is in the final months of
her most interesting gig yet: as NASA’s first ever artist in residence. It’s
a natural pairing—the self-described “techno-geek” excels at cold and
distant yet surreally pretty melodies. Straight, some might say, from outer
space.



The two-year, $20,000 stint will culminate in a film, which will premier at
the 2005 World Expo in Japan. Meanwhile, Anderson has been dabbling in more
down-to-earth work, too. She has been commissioned by the World Expo to
compose music for Japanese gardens; she's planning for a pared-down fall
tour, which will feature just her and a violin, and she has been taking long
walks around Europe. Really long walks. Anderson recently spoke with Brian
Braiker about walking, touring and her dream of writing an epic poem.
Excerpts:

What’s up with your walks around Europe?

Laurie Anderson: This is a very weird project. It started out because French
radio asked me to do a project and I decided to do an audio diary. So for
half a year I recorded just things from every day, wherever I happened to
be. When you listen to this thing it sounds like the most schizophrenic life
you can imagine. One time I’m in Austria playing in an orchestra. Then I’m
in Sri Lanka doing some other thing, then Singapore. I was going to go mix
it in Paris, and I was in Milan at the time and doing a big exhibition of my
work, and I thought, “I’ll just walk to Paris,” in the spirit of, ‘You don’t
really know what’s going to be around the corner.’


From Milan?

Well, I put off that walk, but I began thinking 10 days is a really nice
period of time to walk. But I didn’t really want to walk like a pilgrimage
because I’ve been trying to avoid goal-oriented behavior. Rimbaud, who wrote
a lot about freedom and walking, was always running away to Paris [from
Charleville] as a kid. So I thought “I’ll take the runaway road
backwards”—go from Charleville to Paris.

What is the ultimate product of these walks?

See, that’s the thing. I really don’t know. I’m trying not to be even
goal-oriented in that way. I walked also from Athens to Delphi. That was
another one.

Wow. You were in Greece for work on the Olympics, right?

I was working on writing the opening ceremony. I was supposed to be the
narrator, so I had been there for a year until last December. There was such
a shakeup; they said “Well, you’ll have to produce that opening show for
half the money. Is that OK?” So I wasn’t able to see it through, which I
really am sorry about. Working with that group of people, it was astounding.

You were doing all this as you’re working on your NASA project?

It’s a little wild at the moment because I am doing a lot of different
seemingly unrelated projects, but I’m finding ways to put them together in
ways that are interesting for me. One is a big solo tour that I’ll be doing
this fall of the United States.

Is that the Beauty tour?

I might call it something else, but for now it’s called Beauty. I might just
call it Rocks. I’m out here in Colorado right now.

You’re also composing music for the World Expo.

I need to learn things about what a garden means in terms of a Japanese
garden. It isn’t about grass or flowers, it’s about placement of stones in a
space to represent things. The theme of Expo is nature and specifically this
area in Japan, Nagoya, is all about water. Also, one of the other themes of
Japanese gardens is time. There’s this 15th-century Zen master named Dogen
who wrote a book called “Enlightenment Unfolds.” His central question is
“Are mountains aware?” I thought this sounds like [NASA’s] Ames [Research
Center in California], where I just was. They’re trying to put consciousness
into these Mars rovers—train them as geologists, crack stuff open. The
problem is with their sense of place; where they are and where they think
they are is out of alignment often.

Sounds like some people I know.

I’m not usually where I think I am either. So being out here in the Rocky
Mountains, I’m right now looking at this giant, giant rock, it’s kind of
spooky.

So you have to produce something for NASA and compose music for the World
Expo and plan for a fall tour?

Like most artists I have to combine certain things to do productions,
because it’s never easy to put something together like that. The NASA artist
in residence thing is a very small stipend. It’s not enough to really do
stuff, so that’s why I’m using Expo, to help it turn into something
physical. But my secret dream is to write an epic poem. That’s probably the
most pretentious thing I’ve said.

Pretentious how?

Well, “epic.”

Is it hypocritical that you have been critical of the Bush administration
and here you are working with a government agency?

I think a lot of people in Washington are extremely suspicious of NASA. When
Bush said it was OK to let [the] Hubble [Space Telescope] die, that killed
me. It gives us a window. It’s a wormhole out of here. It gives people some
other way to be in the world other than just as good 21st-century consumers.
I think people are really suffering these days. I think there’s a lot of
corporate triumph and a lot of personal despair as they wonder what are they
working for ... We’re being told “Let’s put a base on the moon, and let’s
put a base on Mars.” And I’m thinking, “Why does that make my hair stand on
end?” If there are bases on the moon, that would be the end of the moon as
we know it.

How do you see your role as NASA’s artist in residence? Do you see it as
showing us the wormhole?
I’m not the kind of artist who feels that I have a mission of any kind
whatsoever. The 19th century was about that. What right do I have? In many
ways it robs people of a lot of things. I’m an average enough person to
point to the things that I’ve gotten to see that are awe-inspiring and look
toward those things. It’s pretty open as an agency and pretty amazing that
they would call up an artist.

And now you’re on the tail end of your two years. Have you produced anything
for them yet?
This film that I’m doing will open in March in the Expo. That will be there
for six months. It’ll play constantly on a huge screen. They have two big
projects. One is this thing that is a theater piece that Bob Wilson is doing
and the other is this link: I’m going to be doing some concerts there in
April and this big film and this garden project.

Are these NASA images you’re using for this film?

It’s images from above. It’s all going to be done in a studio in New York.
It’s about 12 types of time. (I know that sounds so pretentious! I can’t
help it. That’s what it’s about.) It begins with this idea of stuttering and
how difficult it is to start things. People only stutter at the beginning of
the word, they don’t say “stuttering-ing-ing-ing” because they’re not afraid
when they get to the end of the word. There’s just regret. So this is called
“12 Regrets.” And it’s connected to the rocks in many ways. It’s about
expectation, how we move through time and what kind of illusions it creates
for us. There are quite a few images of the moon in it as well. It’s very
exciting because I never really know quite what to expect.

Which gets back to your walks and not knowing where they’re going.

I really trust that more and more. I was getting stuck. I think a lot of
artists who have a certain style and are expected to more or less keep doing
their style. It’s so easy to get into that rut of production. You can do
bigger and bigger things. For what? My own work is more about trying to ask
really good questions and not trying to come up with really big shows. Every
fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that. They’re all
doing multimedia shows … One of the things that I learned from working on
the Olympics was that I was hired as a tech geek, someone whose done big
multimedia shows. I said, “The world does not need another big multimedia
show.”

Little did they know that you were in your walking phase.

I’m in my walking freedom phase! I got my tennis shoes on! And here’s this
place where everything about our culture that’s colossal was invented:
democracy, philosophy, geology, tragedy—just on and on. I said “You have the
right more than anyone in the world to just emblazon that on a giant field.
Know thyself.”

Do you ever anticipate getting back to just one woman and one violin.
That is this fall tour that I’m doing. I’m really looking forward to that.
My plan is to do a series of things, and I hope to end in this poem that
I’ve been working on.

Have you started writing it?

Yes I have. NASA has really inspired me to do this. My commission started
with our technology falling back down on top of us with the [crash of]
Columbia.

Is it too early to share a few couplets?

It is. But I hope that will be what I can contribute, because I do feel so
grateful that NASA said, “Why don’t you try it?” And “I said I’m going to
try my best.” It’s taken a while.

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