"Looking into a Mirror Sideways"

Laurie Anderson, Absent in the Present: Looking into a Mirror Sideways, 1975 © Laurie Anderson

(I know it seems like I'm on a roll this week... and maybe I am... and maybe I'm not. This is my second attempt to put up this post. So, while it occurs to me that I may be slowly retrieving more of my voice after (its) long absence, it is equally as possible that I'm deluding myself...

Or, trying to communicate with a mirror bisecting my face.)

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Laurie Anderson: "I think Donald Trump changed my relationship to reality more than virtual reality did. The second people started chanting “Lock her up,” my sense of reality shifted in a major way. I wish I had more distance and I wish I could just see, “This is really an insane person trying to get attention.” He’s very, very good at what he does. Sometimes I’m kind of lured into his world, even though I recognize it as one of attention-seeking and deeply, deeply disconnected from reality. I still get fooled by it. So, I try not to see it as a disintegrating phase, the last phase of our system. But I would have to say I’m more influenced by his vocabulary of fake news than I am by any art concept of what’s real and what’s not real, or what’s virtual and what’s not virtual, because those things I understand. I understand that art isn’t real, already. But I thought that the real world was real. Silly me, you know?"

- From a 2018 interview with Laurie Anderson found on this MIT page. Keep in mind, 2018 was a deep-shit pandemic year... illusions/delusions/fear were rife in those days... and, quite possibly, still are.

(Correction: the Pandemic - as we know it - wasn't in full swing until 2020. "Illusions/delusions/fear" were "rife" in 2018, but the doo-doo had yet to hit the fan. It merely nourished invasive weeds...) (re: the original green-blooded cast from A Little Shop of Horrors.)

“Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too.”

- Albert Camus, from The Stranger.

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

- Albert Camus.

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This is, yet, another Addendum to the Camus post. It seems he and I continue to dance in the multiverse of the Absurd.

As it was, I just happened upon another artistic contribution by American artist & musician Laurie Anderson; one which seemed to reflect my ongoing Absurdist theme.

Regarding her 1975 photo (above), at a rapid glance, the little girl in the mirror looks like a googly-eyed monster... or the product of a very bad (chemical) trip. In reality, she's no more than a playful little kid who has learned a new trick, an illusion involving a mirror. She wasn't really a monster. But she surely loved appearing like one.

The illusion she created, however, is the central theme of this post. That is, when things start getting scary, wonky, weird, or a little out-or-sync we might ask ourselves: is this just some trick with mirrors?

Take loose cannon (and Republican pawn), Donald Trump, for instance... quite a lot of distortion there. Quite a lot of mirror tricks all the way around. One "sideways" mirror trick makes America appear like a divided nation. A similar mirror trick makes thieves look like clowns. Another mirror trick allows the most marginalized and ineffectual people to appear gargantuan and menacing. It's amazing what can be accomplished with a few strategically placed mirrors.

What's more amazing is that anyone is sane... 

"So, I try not to see it as a disintegrating phase, the last phase of our system."

Laurie Anderson may have been envisioning the future with that line... the pandemic and beyond. (See this related thought experiment.) However, "the last phase of our system" is (most likely) farther away than it appears in our present mirror. But, maybe I'm not looking in the right mirror.

Then again, maybe it's time that you and I dragged ourselves away from mirrors altogether... giving both ourselves & the mirrors a much-needed break (pun intended).

To the Moon, perhaps?

If the future was yesterday, then, when is tomorrow?

"Standby. You're on the air. Buenos noches Senores y Senoras. Bienvenidos. La primera pregunta es: Que es mas macho, pineapple o knife? Well, let's see. My guess is that a pineapple is more macho than a knife. Si! Correcto! Pineapple es mas macho que knife. La segunda pregunta es: Que es mas macho, lightbulb o schoolbus? Uh, lightbulb? No! Lo siento, Schoolbus es mas macho que lightbulb. Gracias. And we'll be back in un momento.

Well I had a dream and in it I went to a little town And all the girls in town were named Betty. And they were singing: Doo doo doo doo doo... Ah desire! It's cold as ice And then it's hot as fire. Ah desire! First it's red And then it's blue. And everytime I see an iceberg It reminds me of you. Doo doo doo doo doo... Que es mas macho iceberg or volcano? Get the blanket from the bedroom We can go walking once again. Down in the bayou Where our sweet love first began. I'm thinking back to when I was a child - Way back to when I was a tot. When I was an embryo - A tiny speck. Just a dot. When I was a Hershey bar - In my father's back pocket. Hey look! Over there! It's Frank Sinatra Sitting in a chair. And he's blowing Perfect smoke rings Up into the air..."

- Lyrics from Smoke Rings by Laurie Anderson, from her 1986 soundtrack album Home of the Brave. Inset right is a photo found here.

(New, 11/8.)  In the video Anderson utilizes two instruments she actually invented: a tape-bow violin (which she uses at the end of the performance)*, and a "talking stick," which is the second microphone she occasionally sings into at certain moments during the piece which distorts her voice so eerily.

Note one other eerie thing: the set of numbers that suddenly appears on the screen in the background at the end of the performance. 911. When I first saw those numbers (appearing after a large "SOS"), I figured that maybe it was a reference to 9/11/01... but, no, the video was allegedly shot in 1987. Prescience? Or, am I just missing something? 

(Later note: Actually, I'm not missing something as much as forgetting something! I believe 911 is the emergency phone # in New York, the rest of the USA, and many countries!  Well, duh.)

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Well, "the times, they are a changing" and quite literally. It's DST here in the states and we've just gained an hour... just in time for an interlude post hosted by that enigmatic woman in the video above, Laurie Anderson, a time-traveler (to be sure), whose amazing performance took place almost 40 years ago... and the world has, yet, to catch up with her.

Case in point, from 1981, O Superman. Ditto. While we're almost there, she's one step ahead of us... which is just as well, as the prognosis is not all that fluffy. On the other hand, when it comes to War - the Great Destroyer - time seems to stand still, or, maybe civilization just gets stuck in the same trench-like groove...

But, never the artist! The video above is from 2018, Anderson's collaboration with the Kronos Quartet.

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* “I used this instrument to play lots of sounds... initially car crashes, saxophones, and barking dogs. Later I began to work with audio

palindromes, words that produce different words when reversed. Audio palindromes are not predictable like spelling inversions. ‘God’ is always ‘dog’ backwards. With a lot of experimentation, I produced songs for this instrument that could be played forwards and backwards."

- Laurie Anderson via this .pdf page. More information can be found on this German site, and in the BBC article: Oksana Linde and the Forgotten Pioneers of Electronic Music.

Laurie Anderson - First (& Last) NASA Artist-in-Residence

Laurie Anderson - Photo Credit: Ivan Prokop - found here

I always admired Laurie Anderson for her performance art, but I had no idea she was also a hands-on visual artist. If you're currently in the New York City area, however, you have until June 23 to catch her most recent exhibit - Boat - at Vito Schnabel gallery, 126 Leroy St.

Anderson is not only one of the most innovative artists to arrive on the scene in the past 3 decades, but also the most astoundingly prolific. But, NASA artist-in-residence? Too cool! Her stint at NASA was not a lasting one - apparently for lack of funding - but she describes this experience, and her life as an artist in general in the video clip below - a commencement address she gave this year at the School of Visual Arts' (SVA) graduation ceremony, held at New York City's Radio City Musical Hall, May 10, 2012.

The video is lengthy but well worth the listen. She is a remarkably inspiring woman who not only describes her own quirky, fearless approach to art, but an artist's approach to living and designing a guilt-free, uninhibited, contemplative artist's life. She proposes a few interesting concepts as well... for example, artist-in-residence positions opening up across the board: in congress, the White House, and the Department of Defense!

Laurie Anderson's website can be found here.