Warner Bros. Laurie Anderson BIO

-Released BRIGHT RED Warner Bros. Records
-Published STORIES FROM THE NERVE BIBLE Harper Perennial
-Toured the United Stares and Europe reading from the book

1993

- Performed with Phil Glass, Nawang Khechog, and Allen Ginsberg at Town Hall, New York City, in a benefit Tibet House
- Met with the National Council on the Arts in Washington D.C.. and spoke on issues including censorship and arts funding
- Performed STORIES FROM THE NERVE BIBLE at the Annenberg Center, Philadelphia with musicians Cyro Baptisa, Greg Cohen, and Guy Klucevsek
"Singers and storytellers, video-and film-maker and experimenter in all things high-tech, Laurie Anderson is a modern renaissance artist and agent provocateur, the superwoman of multimedia showmanship." - Philadelphia Daily News April 12, 1993
-Trecked in the Tibetan Himalayas with 27 yaks, 8 sherpas, and 10 hikers.

"We were looking for Llama Latso. This is the lake where the new Dalai Lama's name is written on the surface of the water in code, Providing clues to the whereabouts of the new leader to the team of monks searching for him. Got lost and almost died from altitude sickness."
- Toured European music festivals with Cyro Baptista, Dougie Bowne, Greg Cohen, and Guy Klucevsek; opened for Bob Dylan in Lisbon and played in a Snowstorm in Switzerland and local explosions in Istanbul
- Worked with Brian Eno on BRIGHTER RED

1992

- Censorship debate on CNN "Crossfire"
- STORIES FROM THE NERVE BIBLE, the performance, was premiered at Expo'92 in Seville
- Toured in Germany and Spain
- Began to work with Cyro Baptista, Brazilian percussionist
- Performed at premier of Arte TV Strasbourg Opera House, Strasbourg, Germany
- Worked at Steim Studio in Amsterdam designing invisible instrument
- Met Lou Reed in Munich
- Collaborated with Michael Waisvisz in Munich and Rotterdam
- Interviewed John Cage for "Tricycle" magazine
- Participated in a tribute to John Cage at Symphony Space, New York
- Hosted "Party for Change" with actor Rob Morrow
- Covered presidential campaign events for National Public Radio
- Created a "Rock The Vote" PSA for VH-1.
- STORIES FROM THE NERVE BIBLE was presented in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel

"I worked with local laser artists who designed complex laser structures for the performance. These amazing looking structures are strictly illegal in most other countries because the lasers are aimed directly at the audience, resulting in a kind of non-specific group eye surgery." -LA

1991

- Performed on a double bill with Cab Calloway, New Years Eve, New York City
- Participated in ArtFutura Barcelona, Met William Gibson
-VOICES FROM THE BEYOND at the Museum of Modern Art; part of a series called "High Art/Low Art" organized by Roselee Goldberg
- Traveled around the United States updating and expanding the talk

"The first draft of VOICES FROM THE BEYOND was written during the fall of 1990 during the media buildup of the impending Gulf War. Compared to a lot of the art being produced, the Gulf War had a lot going for it: a gripping story, super high-tech equipment, a vivid, villainous enemy. Over the next few months, the talk expanded to a three hour, free form ramble on censorship, power, are, women, AIDS, and the disappearance from Communism." - LA

"Since all this began one of the things that has happened is that everybody's gotten real preachy, and puritanical- politicians, pop singers, cab drivers, artists. And it's actually really hard to avoid. I mean it's impossible to talk about Puritanism without becoming one. I know this because my puritan ancestors came to this country from England for religious reasons. The King of England wouldn't let them punish people for playing games on Sunday. So they came to America to exercise this precious right to punish people who didn't agree with them. Welcome to America."-from VOICES FROM THE BEYOND

"Ms. Anderson speaks in a voice that is cool, calm, and collected. This sang-froid lent and extra resonance to the words of VOICES FROM THE BEYOND, a work that stands as an ominous and powerful addendum to "United States I-IV."-Stephen Holden, The New York Times, July, 1991
-Member of the jury at the Berlin Film Festival, chaired by Volker Schlondorf
-Traveled to China to meet musicians and work on a film score
-Worked on "The Human Face" a BBC documentary
-Met the Dalai Lama at "Visions of Perfect Words" St. John the Divine
-Guest on Spanish TV "Viva El Espectaculo"
-Guest Director of the Telluride Film Festival, Telluride Colorado
-Wrote score for "Monster In A Box" a film by Spalding Gray Book tour for EMPTY PLACES Keynote speech for National Association of College Broadcasters
-Founding member of Women's Action Coalition (WAC)

1990

- Toured the performance EMPTY PLACES throughout the United States and Europe over a period of six months. There were 150 concerts on this tour. Fortunately, many of them were partially in other languages so there was always something new to learn.

"...fascinating visually, cogent in its thinking, and lyrical in its newfound means of expressivity." - Variety, Feb. 14, 1990
- Appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno
- Received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago
- Produced PERSONAL SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS

"Instead of doing a music video for the album STRANGE ANGELS I did a series of short 'Personal Service Announcements' on various topics: military spending, the national debt, the national anthem, women's salaries, technology, and television." -LA
- Performed in "One World, One Voice" BBC documentary
- Hosted "Aid and Comfort" benefit for PWA's at the Greek Theater in Berkeley; organized by Tom Luddy. This was the last project I did with the promoter Bill Graham.
- Attended and performed at Composer-to-Composer Forum, Telluride Colorado
- Gave keynote speech at the New Music Seminar, New York City

"The highlight of the event was the keynote speech by Laurie Anderson, whose truly impressive performance easily beat out any speech from a US president in the past ten years...a speech that should be required listening for all concerned citizens...She delivered a devastating state-of-the union address. Her starting point, unsurprisingly, was censorship...But as the speech progressed, it became apparent that her real theme was control...She also addressed the issues of violence, women's rights, the machinations of the music biz, and the crippling legacy of our puritan ancestors. It was a masterful example of her ability to juggle a number of different ideas while holding on to a common thread. And, in contrast to her image as a 'tech queen,' Anderson kept the electronic gadgetry to a minimum. Though she did utilize some visual images and a few minutes of keyboard and vocal manipulations, the most interactive elements of Anderson's speech were her voice, the text, and a microphone." -Gillian Garr, "Thumping the Nerve Bible" The Rocket, Seattle, March, 1994
-Attended International Conference on Art, Science, and Technology, Koln, Germany
-Shot video for BEAUTIFUL RED DRESS directed by Krystie Zea
-Directed the video CARMEN in Seville, commissioned by Expo'92
-Taught a group of meditation students at the Lama Foundation, New Mexico
-Traveled around East Germany; wrote a film script Neue Welt 2000
-Began to meet with Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno to plan a theme park
"These meetings were a lot of fun because you could say anything and the park planners took you seriously. Such as 'How about if a giant black cloud hovers over the park and triggers a forest of talking trees?' Someone would then write down 'Research black cloud to trigger talking tree forest...'" -LA

1989

-Fell into an open manhole
-Mixed STRANGE ANGELS in Woodstock
-Appeared on "The Eleventh Hour" interview on PBS
-Hosted New Music America Tenth Anniversary Gala at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
-Presented an early version of EMPTY PLACES in Rio. The performance premiered at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C. and ran for two weeks at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

"It's not enough for the real avant garde to go to the front; somebody's got to bring Truth back. I like having Anderson in that job. Her stories...cast a wide net that catches everyone...Someday there will have to be a book, "The Philosophy of Laurie Anderson," and it's going to make a lot more sense than Andy Warhol's did." -Kyle Gann, The Village Voice, October, 1989

1988

-Performed at Serious Fun Festival, New York
-Press conference with Bishop Tutu, New York
-Presented exhibitions of visual work at Audiovisual
-Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
-Began to record STRANGE ANGELS
-Played a violin duet with Gidon Kremer
-Worked with Arto Lindsay
-Taught first grade non-English speaking kids at a school in Little Italy to write stories and make books

1987

-Participated in many benefits for AIDS
-Hosted Ernie Kovacs special on PBS
-Shot INTRODUCTIONS a series of short video pieces with the Clone to introduce artists' videotapes on "Alive from Off Center" KTCA Minneapolis
-Went to Bora Bora and sbot underwater video
-Received Honorary Doctorate from Philadelphia College of the Arts
-Interview with Abbot Reb Anderson at the Zen Center, Green Gulch Farm San Francisco
-Benefit concert at Madison Square Garden for New York Children's Health Project With Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen
-HOME OF THE BRAVE was presented in "Director's Fortnight" at Cannes Film Festival
-TALK NORMAL, an illustrated lecture, was presented at the Tokyo International Video Biennale; recorded in English/Japanese on laserdisc

1986

-Toured the performance of NATURAL HISTORY in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia

"This tour required the largest crew I'd ever worked with. The idea of the tour was to promote the movie, but because I had to put it together so fast, it never really became a performance. During rehearsals I had to do so many things at once that I kept losing my voice. I began to work with the vocal coach Joan Lader who taught me how to conserve my voice and how to use it in an entirely different way" -LA
-Threw away most of my old work and began to read manuals
-Met the Prince of Ubud in Bali and had a series of conversations which were recorded and published in Japan
-Met Wim Wenders in Berlin
-Invented digital clone
-Shot WHAT YOU MEAN WE?, a half hour video for "Alive from Off Center"
-Went to the Rio Film festival where HOME OF THE BRAVE was featured
-Met Linda Goldstein who became my manager
-Wrote the score for "Swimming to Cambodia" a film of Spalding Gray's monologue, directed by Jonathan Demme
-Wrote score for "Bird Catcher in Hell" from "Alcestis" by Bob Wilson

1985

-Shot HOME OF THE BRAVE a concert film which was produced by Paula Mazir and shot by John Lindley
-Performed in the Serious Fun Festival (New York)

"It seemed alike a lot of things sort of broke apart in the mid-'80's. I understood for the first time that community comes down to real estate. Soho had become hot and the art market was exploding. My neighborhood had disappeared. I spent a couple of years commuting to California where (Suprise! Suprise!) there was even less of a coherent art community than in New York" -LA

1984

-Met Peter Gabriel and wrote and performed THIS IS THE PICTURE for "Good Morning Mr. Orwell" live video broadcaster organized by Nam June Paik
-Recorded with Jean-Michel Jarre for his record "Zoolook"
-Worked in Paris on a concert for a large theater in the Les Halles district

"The promoters for this event insisted on a long series of 'production meetings'. However, the theater had not been built yet and we all wore hard hats to these meetings. The concert never happened." -LA
-Appeared on "The David Letterman Show" and "The New Show"
-Met Wubbo Occhels, The Dutch astronaut, and Gidon Kremer, the Russian violinist while performing on "Beo's Banhof' a live TV show produced in Munich
-Worked with Nile Rodgers in the studio. Nile played on MISTER HEARTBREAK and produced a groove oriented version of LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS for the HOME of THE BRAVE soundtrack album
-Released MISTER HEARTBREAK album; worked with Bill Laswell, Nile Rodgers, Roma Baran, and Adrian Belew
-Got a Grammy nomination for GRAVITY'S ANGEL
-Began to look for financial backers for a film documenting the concert
-Met Jonathan Demme and tried to convince him to direct the film.
-Group exhibitions included "Disarming Images" Art Museum Association of America, "National Video Festival" screened at the Olympics, and "Give Peace A Chance" The Peace Museum, Chicago

1983

-UNITED STATES performed in its eight hour version at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dominion theater in London, and an all night concert in Zurich. The European tour of UNITED STATES included England, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria as well as many large venues- theaters and opera houses in the United States.

"Anderson is the superstar of the genre, the one performance artist who's risen from the galleries, lofts and discos of the avant-garde to develop a big audience not only in the United States but in the world. Anderson does astonishingly well at standing up there on a big stage and being our surrogate, feeling our conflicting emotions, our rueful disappointments, our even more rueful hopes... Anderson is like an electronic Cassandra, a prophetess, a sibyl, feeding us words, images, sounds, melodies, gags, dreams and stories." -Newsweek, Feb. 21, 1983
-RETROSPECTIVE WORKS FROM 1969-1983 a multi-media exhibition organized by Janet Kardon at Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia; traveled to Houston, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and New York, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Recorded with Nona Hendryx on her album "Nona"
-Premier of SET AND RESET a collaboration with Trisha Brown and Bob Rauschenberg; at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

1982

-Received Guggenheim fellowship
-Released BIG SCIENCE on Warner Brothers Records
-Worked at the Anderson Art Ranch in Colorado with printmaker Bud Shark; produced prints and lithographs
-Worked in Abbey Road Studios in London; mixed score for Michael Mann's film "The Keep"
-IT'S COLD OUTSIDE, a piece for orchestra and electronics performed by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Koln, Germany conducted by Dennis Russell Davies
-Went on European tour which included many cities in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Holland, Switzerland, England, France, and Germany
-Recorded flexidisk (LET X=X) for Artforum Magazine, February issue

1981

-Performed in Anti-Inaugural Ball for Ronald Reagan at the Pension Building in Washington D.C. sponsored by D.C. Space
-Released O SUPERMAN on 110 Records (New York); reached #2 on the British pop charts; met Bob Regehr and signed with Warner Brothers Records
-Recorded BIG SCIENCE co-produced with Roma Baran
-Appeared in "Film du Silence" Catherine Lahourcade for Channel 3 Paris
-SCENES FROM UNITED STATES 3D exhibition at Holly Solomon Gallery, New York City
-Went on an extensive European tour, a combination of museums and performance spaces and ersatz music festivals. The United States/Canadian tour included rock clubs, universities, museums, alternative theater spaces, and converted movie houses
-Performed in "New Music America" San Francisco
-IT'S COLD OUTSIDE performed by American Composers Orchestra
-Met the British director Nigel Finch

1980

-Appeared in "Fourteen Americans" a film by Michael Blackwood
-Traveled to Ponape with other artists and recorded "Word of Mouth" a record of talks sponsored by Crown Point Press; met John Cage
-Toured with William Burroughs and John Giorno
-UNITED STATES II premiered at the Orpheum Theater, New York

"This performance was sponsored by the Kitchen and was the first piece I did in a real theater. It ran for several days and I remember feeling guilty that it was more or less the same every night because I was so used to changing things around for every performance. This piece received a lot of media attention and toured the United States. Because I had an actual lighting designer for the first time, I really had to start sticking to 'the script'. However, on this tour the house engineer Bob Davis would always be doing something to break the repetition. In the middle of a performance I'd look out at the mixing board and he'd suddenly be wearing an enormous duck head for example, or he'd quickly changed into a tux and was waving a baton." -LA
-BORN, NEVER ASKED, a piece for orchestra and electronics; performed by the Oakland Youth Symphony, premiered at the Paramount Theater, Oakland, conducted by Robert Hughes
-DARK DOGS/AMERICAN DREAMS an interactive installation of photographs and audiotape at the Holly Solomon Gallery, New York City

1979

-Received a grant from National Endowment for the Arts
-Published WORDS IN REVERSE
-AMERICANS ON THE MOVE presented at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York

"This piece was performed on a long European tour. ON this tour, I often had to set up my equipment very quickly. I was usually part of a festival where at least three events were on every evening. In Vienna, I followed Herman Nietche who covered the floor with blood and then called the police, to create a little excitement. They arrived at the beginning of my piece. One member of the audience was so upset or drunk that she kept pounding me on the back during the first fifteen minutes of the show. The promoters didn't stop her because they thought it was part of the show." -LA
-Performed at the Customs House, New York with Peter Gordon
-Participated in the Cabrillo festival, Capitolo, California

"This was the first performance I did strictly as a musician/composer rather than a performance artist. I quickly realized that the music world had stricter interpretations of what was acceptable and I began to appreciate the art world even more. Met the conductor Dennis Russell Davies who encouraged me to try to write works for orchestras." -LA
-"Blue Horn File", a trio with Peter Gordon and David Van Tieghem, performed at the Mudd Club. The name was inspired by something from a Bob Wilson play.
-Performed in "New Music New York" at the Kitchen, New York
-Did NIGHT FLIGHT, an installation in Graz, Austria - Recorded various songs for Dial-A-Poem series "Big Ego"

1978

-Worked as a migrant cotton picker with the Taylor family near Covington, KY
-Met Mister Spoons
-Wrote Notebook, a collection of scores and stories
-Lived in Berlin
-Performed at the Nova Convention; met William S. Burroughs
-Performed a series of pieces in Europe and the United States
-LIKE A STREAM, a piece for orchestra and talking chorus performed in Washington D.C., New York, and Minneapolis
-Made THE HANDPHONE TABLE for an installation in the Projects Gallery at the Museum of Modem Art, New York City
-Did sound and visual installations at various galleries and museums in the United States and Europe
-Visited Benedictine Convent in Wisconsin to conduct a seminar with nuns on the spoken word
-Worked as a straight man for Andy Kaufman in comedy clubs and Coney Island
-Taught at Cal Arts, Valencia, California

1977

-Received a grant from New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts
-Recorded several songs for "Airwaves" 110 records, New York and "New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media"
-Spent two weeks not speaking in Buddhist retreat
-Published stories in "Individuals" edited by Alan Sondheim
-Did JUKEBOX, an installation of photos and records at the Holly Solomon Gallery
-Made NUMBERS RUNNERS, an interactive phone booth
-Made THE ACOUSTIC LENS and animated 3-D slide installations
-Did workshops in various colleges
-Shot slides and film on the road
-Performed in many European avant garde music festivals

"The avant garde music scene in Europe in the late '70's consisted of many electronic musicians and technicians struggling to get their instruments to actually produce sound. Most of these instruments were homemade and would only really work for short periods of time during the 'concerts', I enjoyed being in these festivals because I met a number of truly quirky European people. - LA

1976

-Performed FOR INSTANTS at the Museum of the Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum and many colleges and alternative spaces in the United States and Europe.
'During the mid-70's I'm sure I performed in every single 'alternative space' in the United States. This was a great way to see the country. I traveled alone with a big black case of violins, tapes and various gadgets and gradually began to feel more or less like a salesman." -LA
-Received a grant from the Gallery Association on New York State
-Recorded songs at ZBS Media; Peter Gordon produced.
-Worked with various downtown musicians including Arthur Russell, Scott Johnson, and Rhys Chatham
-ENGLISH performed in Germany, Denmark, and Holland.
-Met and hung out with a lot of expatriate American artists in Europe
-Exhibited sculptures and installations in many group shows
-Designed the Tape Bow Violin with Bob Bielecki

1975

-Moved into new loft
-Worked at ZBS Media, Fort Edward New York; became a member of a communal group that had gone through every phase: alternative radio production, gurus, psychedelic drugs, natural foods, kids
-Met ]Bob Bielecki, audio engineer and designer who collaborated on many projects
-Began to record THE TALKING BOOK
-SONGS AND STORIES FOR THE INSOMNIAC and OUT OF THE BLUE were performed in alternative spaces, bars, galleries and museums in the United States and Europe
-Performed DUETS ON ICE in Genoa, Italy
-Film installations AT THE SHRINK'S at the Holly Solomon Gallery, New York City
-Photos and audio pieces included in many group exhibitions
-Made The Viophonograph with Bob Bielecki
-Played with "Fast Food Band" in New York City

1974

-Shot DEARREADER 8 millimeter film; black and white; 45 minutes a collection of stories and songs co-directed with Bob George
-Performed AS: IF TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS in the United States and Europe
-Received a CAPS grant
-Lived in Chiapas, Mexico
-Hitchhiked to the North Pole
"New York in the early '70s was Paris in the '20s. I was part of a group of artist/pioneers that included Gordon Matta-Clark, Gene Highstein, Susie Harris, Tina Girouard, Richard Nonas, Dickie Landry, Phil Glass, Keith Sonnier and several other sculptors and musicians. We often worked on each others' pieces and boundaries between art forms were loose. Soho was pitch black at night, three were two restaurants ('Food' and 'Fanellis') one gallery ('Paula Cooper Gallery') and there was still lots of usable wood on the streets. Almost every night turned into a party. Collectors were just beginning to sniff around which meant that a lot of us began to go to Europe fairly often and also that some of the parties were in the collectors' lofts which meant we rarely had to buy food. "Anarchitecture,' a group show at 112 Greene Street summed up the anarchistic obsessions of the group. We were very aware that we were creating an entirely new scene (later known as 'Downtown.') Gordon Matta Clark was the center of this scene, which ended with his death." -LA
-Made story pillows, WINDBOOK and SELF-PLAYING VIOLIN
-My loft was broken into and almost all my possessions were destroyed
-Wrote LIGHT IN AUGUST and THE ROSE AND THE STONE
-Worked with Bob George at the Whitney Museum Cherry Street branch, supposedly teaching photography to kids, but actually just breaking up fights and cleaning up
-Joined the Holly Solomon Gallery
-Performed IN THE NICK OF TIME in New York City

1973

-Performed O-RANGE in New York City

"Megaphones were used as the sound system in a large empty sports stadium; ten performers shouted stories across the field." -LA
-Took sculpture classes with Sol Lewitt and Carl Andre at the School of Visual Arts
-Made a series of talking boxes on stilts
-Walked around Rome for two weeks with Sol Lewitt
-Met Vito Acconci and was struck by the intense emotion in his performance
-Met Phil Glass; joined other artists who sat in on Phil's rehearsals which resembled meditation exercises
-Wrote TRANSPORTATION TRANSPORTATION

1972

-Studied Merleau Ponty with Arthur Danto, art history with Meyer Shapiro and printmaking with Tony Harrison
-Learned about mudra
-Spent the winter wearing no coat
-Graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in sculpture
-Wrote art reviews for various art magazines "Artforum," "Art News," and "Art in America"
-Taught Art History at various colleges in New York City
-Performed AUTOMOTIVE, a car concert, Rochester, Vermont
-Did INSTITUTIONAL DREAM SERIES, a personal study of narcolepsy and dreams
-Included in "Story Show" John Gibson Gallery
-Wrote OCTOBER and HANDBOOK
-Began to work on THE TALKING BOOK
-Compiled ECOTECTURAL FABLES, a series of collages about the relationship between animals and architecture