We are so
excited this evening to welcome our keynote speaker, experimental composer and visual
and performance artist Laurie Anderson. A native of Chicago, Anderson is an
alumna of Barnard College and Columbia University. She found her artistic voice
in the cultural stew of downtown New York City’s arts scene in the early 1970s
and has grown to become one of the most persistent, emphatic, and creative
female voices in music. In 1979, Anderson premiered her work United States at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music, an eight-hour stage exploration of transportation, politics, money, and
love in the United States. She became NASA’s first ever (and last ever) artist
in residence in 2003. Her most well-known work by far is O Superman from 1981, which reached number two on the UK pop
charts. The eight-minute work tackles the ubiquity of dichotomy and conflict –
the difference between stability and instability, direction and atmosphere, hope
and dread, fear and joking, and the reality that these differences are often inescapable.
Anderson’s art represents a radical
departure from, as well as a feminist answer to the misogynist undertones of
previous experimental art movements such as Futurism, Dadaism, and Fluxus. As
the fight for women’s suffrage gain steam at the dawn of the twentieth century,
the Futurist movement published its manifesto, promising to “glorify … scorn
for women” and to “fight moralism [and] feminism” (Le Figaro 1909). Anderson helps to steer experimental art away from
its misogynist history by rejecting the fundamental notions of the gender
binary and prohibitive gender roles, questioning and undermining the very
structure of the historically male-dominated world of traditional analysis and
composition, and challenging the Western discomfort with the human body. In United States, Anderson portrays herself
as androgynous, denying the historical and problematic tendency of the female
body being subverted and delegitimized by the male gaze. Her extensive use of
technology and electronics in her performances is indicative of her overall
departure from societal expectations about women’s relationships with machines
and, more importantly, power. Anderson’s music is also less goal-oriented and
more atmospheric, as well as harmonically less complicated than traditional
music, encouraging more creative and interpretive analyses and reactions than
traditional music theory dictates. She is unashamedly within her body during
performance, refusing to give credence to what musicologist Susan McCrary
defines as Western culture’s “puritanical, idealist suspicion of the body”
(McCrary 136). Hers is art that needs to be seen to be appreciated. Bodyless recordings
and virtuosic symphony orchestras hiding themselves in black clothes cannot
convey the whole story of Anderson’s work, which often includes elements of
body percussion, vocal modification, and dance. Anderson is a prolific feminist
figure and a major force in modern music. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me
welcome Laurie Anderson.
Terrific intro, Sam. You are right to link Anderson to earlier experimental movements and their latent misogyny. Good overview of the issues explored in Anderson's work!
ReplyDeleteSam,
ReplyDeleteThis intro really intrigues me to see what other topics will be covered in this keynote session; I see your points about Anderson's disowning of women's categorized relationship to machines, body image, and the fact that a woman's form means it is subject to delegitimization. This reads quite well, and it succinctly describes Anderson as an individual and emphasizes the importance of her effect on contemporary avant-garde music.
I really enjoyed your writing Sam! I think your intro is very eloquent and relevant for a feminism symposium!
ReplyDeleteSam,
ReplyDeleteI think you covered some of the most important points and aspects about Anderson's life and work without a lot of fluff and rambling. I like how you address that her work has to be seen, not just heard, to get the full effect, placing a greater emphasis on her role as a performance artist.