Multimedia artist Laurie Anderson took a captivated Cornell audience on a trip through the arc of her career during a Sept. 26 talk at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
The talk was recorded and is now
Part of the 麻豆视频 and 麻豆视频鈥 Arts Unplugged series, Anderson鈥檚 conversation with music Professor Judith Peraino ranged from her sculptures and paintings to musical instrument inventions to her latest forays into virtual reality and artificial intelligence and a work-in-progress opera about the end of the world.
Anderson spoke with fondness of her early painting teachers, who taught her it鈥檚 OK to break the rules and to find your own form of expression.
鈥淥ne of my teachers told me that when you鈥檙e really stuck, try to do your worst work and I think you鈥檒l find that it could become your best work, because you don鈥檛 have all of those rules,鈥 she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 grateful to people who say it doesn鈥檛 matter so much. The important thing is to feel free.鈥
鈥淎nderson鈥檚 work embodies a boundless freedom of thought, and the conversation brought that out,鈥 said Peraino, the faculty host for Anderson鈥檚 visit. 鈥淚t鈥檚 inspirational to hear an artist of such range speak with humor and candor about her creative process and the challenges of being an artist in the current moment.鈥
The Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity was the lead sponsor for Anderson鈥檚 two-day visit, which was part of the university鈥檚 theme year,
Along with Anderson鈥檚 visit, which included a workshop with students, Cornell Cinema showed three of her films in September and Cornell鈥檚 Center for Teaching Innovation hosted 鈥淭o The Moon,鈥 a virtual reality experience created by Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang. That VR exhibit continues until Oct. 6 and
鈥淭o The Moon鈥 is eerie, elegant, and maybe the most poetic use of VR I've ever experienced,鈥 said , associate professor of performing and media arts, director of the Milstein Program and another faculty member planning Anderson鈥檚 visit. 鈥淚n the world of commercial VR, led by Meta and soon Apple, I'm thrilled that Cornell students have an opportunity to see such alternative, artistic visions of our virtual futures.鈥
Anderson鈥檚 varied creative career has ranged across poetry, prose, music, dance, film, drawings, paintings, sculptures and multiple varieties of digital works.
During her Schwartz Center event, Anderson and Peraino talked about Anderson鈥檚 wooden 鈥渉andphone鈥 table, created with depressions for a person鈥檚 elbows and a hidden sound system inside so that only a person sitting at the table with their hands over the ears can hear what鈥檚 going on inside. They shared video clips of Anderson鈥檚 explorations with vocal filters, including the creation of her character Fenway Bergamot, her male alter ego, and of her more famous musical pieces, including 鈥淥 Superman.鈥
Anderson also shared some of her altered violins 鈥 鈥淚 think of the violin as a surrogate, it is a ventriloquist dummy character that you can make talk,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 lonely to be a solo performer, so this is a way to have a conversation.鈥
Her new opera, 鈥淎rk,鈥 is the story of a 21st century ark being created to prepare for the end of the world. It鈥檚 based on the story of an American religious sect that, through calculations of tides and winds and currents, determined that the Garden of Eden of biblical stories was actually in upstate New York. 鈥淭hrough a series of rather specious time/space calculations, they鈥檝e concluded that the ark has not left yet,鈥 Anderson said. 鈥淪o I said, 鈥榯hat鈥檚 the story I wanted to write.鈥 鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 about where you think you鈥檙e going and when and what you are going to take,鈥 Anderson said.
To close her talk, Anderson told the audience about a project at the Australian Institute for Machine that has taken all of her work 鈥 every song, speech, poem, video, book, interview, everything she鈥檚 ever said 鈥 and uses AI to create an Anderson-style poem based on a few words users type in.
鈥淭hey crossed my work with the bible and they sent me a 9,000-page text, 鈥楾he Bible According to Me鈥,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t was terrifying. I鈥檓 telling you with great confidence about the creation of the world, the dominion of man over animals, the fiery end in Revelations. It鈥檚 freakish.鈥
The institute also included the work of Anderson鈥檚 late husband, Lou Reed, and so 鈥渘ow we write together,鈥 she said. 鈥溾業鈥檒l Be Your Mirror,鈥 (part of her Stockholm show) was part of this experiment in songwriting in these two voices through AI.鈥
To demonstrate the poetry AI, Anderson took a suggestion from the audience: 鈥淭he cathedral sipped on muscle milk.鈥 It generated an Anderson-style poem that ends this way:
Yeah it鈥檚 that time of year again
The season when everything seems to have gone
Bad or better or worse than it did before
And just as I鈥檓 about to ask what鈥檚 next
What鈥檚 next, the answer is: nothing
Just as I said
Don鈥檛 think of it as dead
This is just a muscle memory
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