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Η Laurie Anderson στη Στέγη, σε μια συζήτηση με την Αφροδίτη Παναγιωτάκου
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-Welcome! -Thank you very much!
Hello, everyone.
I think I'd like to ask how our audience feels having you here.
Instead of asking you how you feel being here.
How do you feel about being here?
I'm excited to be here.
I haven't been here in a while, so it's great to be here.
What do you see across the street from your hotel window?
I see the Parthenon!
Yeah, I do.
What comes to your mind when you see the Parthenon?
Let's see...
It seems quite small from my window.
I thought it was a lot bigger.
I've never really known...
sizes in a city, that's why I like to walk around.
Because, suddenly, things loom up right next to the building
you have dreamed about and it's right there.
But this is really very far away, quite tiny.
It's just a little diamond on the top of the hill.
So, I think this is one of the big differences between...
Greece and the US.
Especially Athens, where everything has a human scale...
even the churches are not like cathedrals,
and the Parthenon is not a pyramid.
But how small or big do you feel in the USA these days?
How big is it? We have pencil buildings now
and they're really frightening.
They're the size and shape of pencils.
We have maybe four. When you see the skyline,
you see there are regular skyscrapers. And then, you see these...
pencils that are so dangerous to live in.
I think they're very top heavy so they don't...
As a citizen...
Do you feel small or big in the USA these days?
Well, I feel...
I'm not sure if it's about size.
It's more about disappointment than size.
I think...
it's like...
the last few weeks are shattering.
I haven't decided if that's a big or small thing.
But I do...
I grew up...
as a kid...
in a movement that was gonna stop the war.
We felt a lot of power.
You know...
We also had a counterculture,
which is not existing now.
It makes a big difference if you have that.
Your own music, your own clothes, books, everything. Your own philosophy.
Your own vibe. Now, kids are...
They don't have that as much... They don't have their own culture.
They try to fit into the dominant one,
which is branding and marketing...
finding your place...
They try to define, kind of rigidly sometimes, who they are.
I was part...
of a group of people, who didn't have a plan.
We just danced down the road and whatever happened.
And then...
There were people who had plans.
I'm gonna live in this house, do this job, I'm gonna have this...
We felt sorry for them.
You've said in the past that you are...
you feel as part of American humor, as well.
You think that these days...
in America, humor can be a weapon,
or a shield in order to protect yourself from what's happening?
Many things can be shields right now.
Prejudice can be a shield and humor...
It's not so funny right now in the USA.
But...
of course, it's always funny.
There's always something absurd about this...
crazy posturing that's going on.
Some American comedians are having a pretty good time.
Is it the cynical ones who are having a good time?
Do the cynics have a good time these days?
If you're cynical, then you can be both safe or free.
-It depends. -I don't think cynics have a good time.
-Cynics never have a good time. -Not really.
They're not a happy bunch.
It's hard to be cynical. You have to be...
dark and...
Cynics are not a jolly bunch.
But didn't you invent cynics?
If you ask me, I think they have...
a dry sense of humor.
But they can never be your friend.
You don't have any cynical friends?
No, my friends are all romantics.
-Only romantic friends? -Yes.
They still fight for utopia.
They still fight for a utopia they know they'll never exist.
-So sad. -Are you romantic?
A romantic?
-Yes. Are you? -Like most people,
I'm a mixture of different things, depending on the day, the topic.
It could be...
Yeah, like most people, a real mix.
But what do you do in order to be able to feel sad
without being sad?
My teacher, Mingyur Rinpoche...
is...
he is officially the happiest person in the world.
In case you're wondering if there was one...
he is, according to the Neuroscience Department, Wisconsin.
They measure happiness
by putting all sorts of...
things around your brain and they measure
your response.
And they do it with sounds. They play sounds
that for most people, they're incredibly disturbing.
You are speechless and it's really difficult...
And...
Because he's a Tibetan lama, a meditator,
he has what we call equilibrium.
So they're measuring...
his hard heartedness, if he's able to resist.
He resists.
But he's a very wonderful teacher.
The thing that rings the most for me
is something that he said, which you just quoted.
"Practice how to feel sad without actually being sad."
It is a wonderful distinction to make.
There are...
so many sad things in the world.
If you pretend they're not there...
you're an idiot.
You know...
On the other hand...
the most important thing is
not to be sad yourself.
So, don't become what you're looking at.
Absolutely, really feel it...
and don't push it away.
But do not become that.
Since you like words, and we were talking about words,
before our official discussion here...
"Idiot" comes from a Greek word.
It means the owner
The owner is someone who only cares about his own private space.
So, idiot, as a silly person,
is a person who only cares about his own private space.
I know so many idiots who don't care about their own space.
Themselves is their space, so that's more than enough.
Yeah.
But I love the fact that...
you talk about beauty
as something even more important than truth.
Maybe... So...
That's a trap.
It's a trick question if you're supposed to choose between them.
It's like someone who says...
"If you can have no eyes or no ears...
which one would it be?"
It's really impossible
to answer that question,
or it's just gloomy.
But if I had to answer the truth and beauty thing...
I would...
I would say beauty for sure, absolutely.
Because it's...
The more you see these...
eternal truths play themselves out,
I began to see them more as beliefs than...
as some absolute thing.
So, I see people believe in things.
But we live in, at least in the USA...
in a world of stories.
The people in power are really the ones with the best story.
That's often the case. But it's really vivid now...
It's so clear that...
It's presented as...
as truth/story.
I guess you're asking yourself, too, "Who is telling the story?"
These days, in the world, who is the story-teller?
What are we in this story that unfolds?
I'd say, "Who's asking?"
I am. It's a personal, subjective question.
-A very personal question. -OK, well...
I don't know the answer to that.
I'm very interested in... I don't use...
the word "I" so often.
I try to...
look at other ways to tell stories.
Sometimes the third person is really handy.
I'm also not the kind of artist who's interested
in self-expression.
I don't care if you know me.
I really don't care.
That's not the point. I guess the point would be...
just to see something...
Maybe it's kind of even familiar.
Because the most...
The thing I like the best is if somebody says...
"I really like what you did, it was what I was thinking already.
Just a little bit different."
It's not familiar like...
You just turn it ten degrees and it looks very different.
But it's also familiar.
I'm not into new forms, like "Wow! That's a new form"...
or "A new plait. That's such a wild plait."
That kind of new is not so interesting to me
as, like, "old" new.
Do you see yourself as a messenger
of a collective...
-thought or experience? -No.
I like angels a lot.
And I just...
A friend of mine was telling me about a new angel...
that I didn't know, Kairos. Wasn't Kairos an angel?
Icarus?
The one with the wings on his back?
No, the one who chooses the right exact...
-moment. -Keros!
It means time and the weather in Greek.
Both, yes.
I just got that little book that was published about the weather
-by Onassis Foundation. -Yes.
I saw that
as a chapter title...
and I realized that's my favorite angel.
The exact right second to do something.
I didn't know there was no word...
for weather.
How can that be?
I mean...
In English, we talk about the weather when there's nothing to say.
You know, "How's the weather?"
"Fine". It's just a nothing topic.
But it's a real thing as we always use it as...
"political weather" or what's the feel of...
-but there's no word for it. -You're absolutely right.
I have to say that I really appreciate the fact that...
you paid attention to the books.
It's interesting that in Greek
we have a word that combines the idea of weather
time, timing and the right moment.
When we say, "It was about time"
you can also translate it as "It was the right weather
to do this or not."
But you work with time.
What you do... Music is the art of time.
And you do things
that somehow measure...
the sense of change. When one gets in touch with your work.
then he becomes another person.
And what has happened in between is time.
There are people who keep on saying you have always been ahead of your time.
What does "ahead of your time" mean?
Well...
I don't exactly know
why people would say that.
I work in the world's most...
ancient art form,
which is stories. And those are always...
I don't know if stories in Greek start with "Once upon a time"...
They do in English.
They're invoking another time.
I don't know...
Maybe what it makes it look like "ahead of its time"...
was this false veneer of technology.
We were talking about that before.
They used to be called "tech artists."
Before that it was "word artists."
That's a horrible way to call new art forms.
What was said...
There was "persona art"...
-"Performance art" is also very... -"Forma".
-That was another thing. -Yeah.
My art books are "word art"...
They're really clumsy sort of titles.
So, I was "high tech artist."
That meant nothing.
Everybody is a tech artist, we all do stuff like that.
I don't know why...
But it is something that I...
as a musician, is always an element in what I'm doing.
To be able to tell a story the way you do it,
it takes some talent.
Voltnoi, a great colleague of ours,
he called you an amazing observer.
What do you observe?
Can you just sit there without observing?
Can you just not think?
Can you be without doing anything, without paying attention
to what's going on around you?
I do try to do that.
That's why I'm a student of...
not only Mingyur Rinpoche, but also...
what I've been studying since the '70s.
It's called "Nature of Mind."
It's about trying to resist
thoughts and...
I'm not very successful at that, I have to say.
They're always...
trying to get your attention floating by.
They have these routines.
"I'm so important, you really have to pay attention to me."
Or "I'm the last of my kind."
"You'd better look over my way."
I'm like "What is that?"
I have a short attention span and I try to study things like that.
Why is attention so important?
Why...
I was wondering, how do you feel about people
who are considered lazy?
-Do you see something wrong? -Lazy?
When people call someone "a lazy person",
they consider it a very bad thing.
Where I grew up, in my family, being lazy was like a sin.
How do you feel about people who are just lazy
and don't want to do things?
They don't want to do them or...
I don't have a blanket feeling about lazy people.
because some are having the best time of their lives.
No. I am a Puritan, it's true.
When I went to school as a kid,
my mother would lean out of the window and yell, "Win!"
I was like, "Win? Win what?"
There was always some thing you could try to do well or something.
But it made life seem like a contest.
You could also lose.
I was terrified.
But...
I think...
As a workaholic myself,
I think I do it just because it's interesting...
but maybe not. I'm not gonna delve too deeply into that topic.
But...
-You're a workaholic yourself. -I am.
Why?
Why am I a workaholic?
-Because I like it. It's simple. -It's fun.
I think it's that simple.
Another thing I really wanted to ask you about,
because you create these dreamy worlds
and when it comes to you, I always think of words
like death, dreams, life.
If you want to talk about life, you have to talk about death.
Talking about the Greek language,
Greek legends and myths and stuff...
Sleep is the brother of Death.
-Sleep? -Sleep, yes.
It's the closest you can get.
When you're going to your "Tibetan Book of the Dead"...
Sleep and Death are very close to each other for ancient Greeks.
How do you feel about sleep?
Especially workaholics, not myself,
think of sleep as something that is like wasting your time.
But now, we're finding out,
is that sleep is another life.
Unless you live this, you live half of your life.
What is your relationship to sleep?
I like it.
Almost a third of my life, like a lot of people,
is in that state
and I suppose I can't separate it really from dreams.
So, I love the language of dreams.
The jump cuts that you can make,
the things that you can learn about yourself
in your logical, waking life
where you're not making those associations
And I do find...
that it's a really wonderful way that your mind can work.
And it's working, it's kind of going
"This red is next to this blue" and "Let's look at how these relate".
And when you don't have all the rules and logic
that you apply when you are awake
I find...
it can be...
one of the most creative parts of the day
to dream.
When somebody goes to your exhibition, is it like entering a dream?
Yes, in some ways.
I brought a lot of pictures here. I'll show you one.
Because it reminds me of what you're saying.
There was...
There was a room.
This is from a show called "The Weather"
which would be untranslatable.
And there's one...
Oh no, that's coming into this room.
This room was a kind of... There was going to be a lot of VR.
It is a show, an exhibition
at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC.
And we were going to have a lot of VR things,
but because of COVID they said we can't do the masks.
And so I decided...
well, maybe if I can draw VR
instead of doing all the electronics. So that was...
Let's see. What is this? Oh, yeah.
This room is like a notebook...
that you walk into this notebook and it's full...
of just sketches on the wall.
This was going to be a corner, and then I got kind of carried away.
So there is a talking parrot in there.
He is on his stand. I think we have a close up of that.
No, there. Oh, yeah. So he's...
I built an early version of this parrot a while ago...
and he had a sensor in his chest.
So that when people came into the room
he'd engage them in chitchat or small talk or art world talk like,
"Oh, you are looking so good."
"Maybe we should have lunch. Let's have a lunch."
And you're like "Are you talking to me?"
Or he would just go "Smoke. Smoke. Lots of smoke."
He'd try to do these beckoning calls to people
and they'd engage with him.
Like the early, you know, computer programs of ELIZA
and all of those talking computers that, you know,
suddenly might be talking to you.
Anyway, let's see what else there is in that section.
Yeah...
Yes. There are a lot of quotes
and also there were some little stories.
Now, this is a little hologram.
Because when people go into a museum... So it's only this big.
So it's in the corner of a room and this person is telling a story.
It's hard to do narrative things in a museum.
You know, really... You know, you're in...
You come to the video room and you're like...
Yeah, it's just like...
Everything else you seen in an instant, a painting or a sculpture,
and then you go "Oh, I have to spent three hours in this video room"
with not very good projection and really uncomfortable seats.
But a narrative takes time, as you said before.
So there were different solutions
to how you put a story in a museum. Let's see if there is another...
Oh, yeah. So this is a huge...
image of...
Mohammed El-Gharani who was my collaborator in this case.
It was a piece about prison.
Please tell us a bit more about this particular one
because I think...
it's an amazing story.
Yeah, his story was... See, there was... Before that...
I was in... just as a little background...
This is a work that I did...
Let's go to this instead.
I was asked to do...
a sound installation in a little town called Krems in Austria.
I went to this place and there was a really big 13th century church,
very resonant, and I didn't know what to do, I had no ideas.
And the curator kept coming over and going "What's your project?"
And I was like "I don't know".
Really to escape the curator, I ran up some stairs
in the old church and I went and looked
and in the middle of this perfect little Austrian town
was a maximum security prison.
I was in the bell tower and looking over at the guard tower
and a guy has a big machine gun and he's looking at me.
And I was like "Whoa".
I ran down the stairs and I said to the curator
"I'm gonna do something about telepresence."
We're going to build a studio in the church...
and a studio in the prison and we're gonna have a prisoner,
this was in 1998...
And the prisoner is gonna sit very still
and we're going to build a life size statue of this person
and put him in the apse of the church...
and we're gonna beam the image of this person
and wrap him onto the statue.
So, it would be about time, about serving time,
and it would be about telepresence
and also the attitude of the church and the prison to the body
you know, incarceration and incarnation, they're not there.
Surprisingly, they said "Okay". I was like, "Really?"
Okay.
And then, shortly after that,
we learned that Austrian law forbids
the use of a prisoner's image.
You no longer own your image when you're in prison in Austria.
A very 21st century thing, as well. Who owns your image?
What can they do with your picture online? A lot.
Do you own that anymore? So, it's about that, as well.
And eventually...
their sort of attorney general said "I love this project".
"You have a special dispensation to do it." So I said okay.
Eventually, we didn't do it.
But we did it at the Prada museum, and here is Santino.
He is a prisoner
in San Vittore prison in Milan.
It was a weird project in a way,
because, you know, when you're collaborating with someone
it has to really be a collaboration,
otherwise it's very close to just exploitation of someone.
So I spent a lot of time going to the prison,
spending time with the prisoners
and talking to them about this project, and...
This is an white collar prison in Milan.
And it was basically, all these guys who were in for life,
and they were genuine bad guys, but they were...
but they were speaking Latin and Greek,
and they were all writing books and were very clever, very urbane,
they're all wearing Armani, and I was like "Whoa".
And they could have their friends over for dinner at the prison,
they had knives. They were in forever.
I was trying to explain this project to them
and they were like "Mhm, aha".
And because they were lawyers, all of them,
they were very skilled at manipulating you
and making you think that it was your idea
when it was their idea.
And they were kind of nodding, as you are nodding right now.
Just "Aha. Hm, that's a clever idea".
They had chosen the prisoner I would collaborate with.
And I was gradually talking to Santino.
Bank robber, murderer,
murdered some people on his way out of the bank,
and a writer, a wonderful writer.
And so he learned to sit very still and we did this project in Milan.
And then I wanted to do it in the US.
Years later, this was '98.
And so in 2015, the Park Avenue Armory asked me to do there something.
And I was proposing very a large prison.
Because one in every one hundred Americans
is in prison.
It was a kind of a strange "coincidence"
that, you know, the second prisons became privatized
and were a business,
there are a lot more prisoners suddenly.
Anyway, I proposed doing some things,
like making a kind of Egyptian hallway
with prisoners streaming in from all the upstate prisons.
But there were already cameras and reality shows in prison
and lots of things have happened in a prison. So they were like...
And so the project was getting under way.
At some point...
pretty far into the project...
I heard from Homeland Security and they said...
"You will never be doing this project in the United States of America."
So I was like "Oh, okay".
I got the message and yeah... Artists are so free.
So we do whatever we want.
And so...
By the way, this was supposed to also happen at the Whitney
and then they decided that it was just too political.
At the Whitney? That's interesting.
Yeah, they said "No, we can't do it. It's too political". I said okay.
So then they said "What's your plan B?".
I was like "I don't have a plan B. So I came up with this thing
which was like a kind of western landscape
that had sort of strange things in it.
There would be little kids playing cowboys
with little miniature stubble beards
and miniature ponies and things.
Oh, yeah. There was a motorcade that was going to happen.
Another Kennedy thing that actually didn't happen.
There's Jackie Kennedy Onassis in the back seat.
So, it was a kind of history parade with a lot of others things,
with a lot of miniature ponies.
This was not something I was... it was just sketches, you know.
They were like "You're doing this". I said "Really? Okay".
"Now we need a photo shoot."
And I said "Okay, well, bring some ponies in".
And so we brought some ponies in for the photo shoot.
And, you know, they were playing the violin with ponies.
It was absurd.
So...
With you there, it doesn't look absurd.
I mean, with you being there, it all makes sense for some reason.
I don't know, ponies, you might know, are just really nasty.
They really kick and like, they're...
Because in reality they wanted to be horses.
It's like Donald Trump, he wanted to be President.
Maybe Donald Trump as a pony? Yeah, I can see that.
I mean, my sister who's a horse trainer, said
that if ponies were people, they'd all be in jail.
Which, for Don, you know, it's not a bad idea.
We're trying. We're trying.
We'll see what happens. He's a slithery guy. So, anyway...
Then the next thing that happened, I was completely stalled.
I have no project, it's like next week, more or less.
So then I got in touch
kind of by chance
with some people who have a group in London
called "Reprieve"
and they work with people on death row in the US.
And they work with prisoners in Guantanamo.
So...
I got in touch with them and told them about this project,
explaining, you know, it's about time,
you build a cast of a person and then you project it...
It's a complicated thing to explain on the phone
and I expected this person to go "Thank you so much for telling me
about your interesting, fascinating project". Click.
But no, instead she said "Tell me more".
I was like, okay.
So, I ended up collaborating with Mohamed El-Gharani,
the youngest detainee at Guantanamo.
And I got to know him and his story.
And this is also about stories.
His story vs the US Government story of what they said he was.
Most of the people in Guantanamo are just... I mean...
95% are very unlucky guys.
Cab drivers, students. These are not the "terrorists bad guys",
there are a few of those guys,
and they are organizers of that.
But mostly, you know, they were sold for $5,000.
Somebody comes into their town and they go
"You don't need to point, but just tell me
if somewhere in this area is some guy from Saudi Arabia
because we're looking for Saudis."
"If you do, you don't have to point.
But you'll get $5,000.''
And so, you know, they all did that.
So, Mohamed El-Gharani
was collaborating with us on it and here he is.
We built a statue kind of the size of the Lincoln Memorial.
We built a studio in Ghana where he was living...
because he couldn't come.
When you're in Guantanamo, you're stateless when you're released.
It's very hard to get citizenship anywhere.
The US government makes it pretty hard for people.
And he's not allowed to reenter the US.
No, he was never allowed to reenter.
So I thought let's have him enter digitally
and have him tell the story.
We had people listening to this story for the first time.
And we had massive stacks of his legal story as well.
what happened with all of that,
and this completely fictitious thing...
that the US government had said, they said...
"This guy is from Chad, near Saudi Arabia."
He was a goat herder. But they said when he was eight
he was a terrorist spy in London.
It's hard for a little eight-year-old goat herder
to think of that, get to London, start plotting.
The stories are absurd.
They're taken out of the air for other reasons
and placed onto somebody. That's what happened with Muhammad.
So, we...
He was in this big installation.
He's also in Washington DC now,
not in a live situation, he's not streaming live,
but it's just as a kind of historical version of this piece.
But the thing I think about the most when I think of this project was...
you know how you always know where the cameras are?
You know, so...
in a parking lot or something you know that's over are.
Especially in London, where they are just everywhere.
But people who came to this could see
that, you know, there was a camera up there
that was kind of looking at the statue
so that it would give Muhammad a chance to move his hand
to adjust his projected image
onto the sculptural image of his body.
So we were talking to him kind of going,
"Mohammed, move your little finger just an inch"
and it would be like a flip.
And so, then gradually people realized
that if they stood in front of the statue,
that he could see them, so there would be a feedback thing.
And that was probably...
one of the most intense moments of my life as an artist,
because people could then make contact with this guy.
And they came with big signs saying,
"Hello, Mohammed." They were waving,
they brought their guitars, they played for him.
And he was like "Whoa", you know,
because he was somebody who had been called a terrorist
by these people. And suddenly he's right there
and also telling some of his own stories about what happened,
because he wasn't sitting silently, he spoke.
And also we had...
some other installations of him speaking.
Anyway...
they were also just mouthing things to him
because there were no microphones.
And so they would just make the words "I'm sorry".
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
And it was like...
this moment where I just felt...
that the connection just clicked.
It was a very intense moment for me.
Also in terms of stories, too.
Like when you just went for this really big fiction,
and here's a guy who is very articulate, very funny.
And here's the weird thing about it, too.
He was 12, he was tortured...
he was cut up, a lot of things happened to him,
that happened to a lot of people in Guantanamo,
and put in solitary,
tortured.
First by his American interrogator,
the first one was a woman who said "Think of me as your mother".
And then she would send him to be tortured.
This kind of thing, you know. Playing with people.
Anyway...
There was also one guard there...
These guys are army guys,
they didn't necessarily want to be prison guards.
This was a job that nobody wants,
and suddenly they are guarding these people,
who many of them liked.
There was a soldier who taught Mohammed English,
by pasting a word a day under the door to his cell.
And he could scrape it off and learn it.
And he... at great risk to himself,
because he would be court martialed
if he was making friends with the "terrorists".
So, anyway, that was...
So we did that...
I showed you this smaller version in Washington.
We did the same thing, which was...
here are some more tiny people.
These are 18 little statues of people. And you walk into this room...
and they're way down on the floor and they're all sharpening knives,
and you hear this sharpening sound.
It's a group called "Citizens".
And, anyway...
Well, somebody described this tribute,
because it's more than an exhibition, as an odyssey.
Do you see your life as an odyssey?
As a constant journey...
where the destination exists and doesn't exist at the same time?
And since we'll be working together also for the Cavafy Festival
in the US, "Ithaca"...
just exists in order for you to make this long journey?
So do you see your life and your artistic...
I cannot actually distinguish your life and your artistic expression that much.
So do you see your life as an odyssey?
If an odyssey means you don't know what you're looking for, definitely.
If you're open to temptations.
Yeah, I guess. I mean, when I think of 19th century science
I think of that as more of an odyssey...
as opposed to 21st century science.
Because scientists used to be able to do some things, like...
"I want to hold up this Petri dish up and let's see."
"Lightning is gonna hit it, or germs will start growing."
"I don't know what will happen." Now, if you're a scientist
you have to predict
what the results of your experiment are going to be.
You have to know what you're looking for before you start looking for it.
That doesn't make any sense to me.
In terms of trying to make something.
I'm trying to, not make, but just see.
I don't know what I'm looking for.
And that was a thing that I learned
when I was artist-in-residence at NASA.
That I had a lot more in common with scientists than I thought.
They don't know what they're looking for either.
At least at NASA, they're not really sure.
It's all about the process, so it's all about the journey.
And that's the best thing about accidents.
That you find out things
that if were doing everything correctly, you wouldn't be finding it.
Yeah, I mean, I guess an "accident" is a funny word, you know.
It's something... A miracle to someone
is an accident to another. It's like, I don't know.
Is it like... because you talk about death and freedom.
So things that are death for some people
are freedom for others. Like guns and abortions.
-Yeah. -So, what's going on now
with these two words in your world?
Well, that was the whole...
span...
on one's end of that spectrum is freedom
and on the other is death.
And that's why in two days those two arguments,
which are happening very intensely in the US now...
First of all, there was the Supreme Court ruling,
"Yeah, guns!" Υou know.
"Let's lift a lot of those bans."
And the second one was abortions.
"Let's try to control that."
Those arguments that have death and freedom on either ends
are guns and abortions,
because for some people guns are freedom
and for others guns are death.
For some, abortion is freedom,
and for others it is death.
This is an intense fight between not just, you know, laws,
but between what you see as your freedom
and what is death.
It's a very elemental warfare...
that's going on in the US now.
And it's really fracturing the whole country.
It's just wildly different things.
On the one side, a group of people who really like to have
things with lots of rules, really clear rules,
And the other side, we're just going,
not so many. And they both claim that they are ruleless
and are more about freedom.
So the word "freedom", nobody knows what it means now. At all.
It's a free for all.
But is freedom a state where there is no fear?
I think there is always fear.
I mean, fear is one of the most human things we have.
This show...
in the Hirschhorn starts with these red flags,
which is meant to be...
well, it's a warning kind of situation.
And also one that plays around with different ideas
of patriotism and flag waving, and you know,
what side you're on, and this kind of thing.
But do you have any fears that actually motivate you to do things?
Are there any motivating fears in your life?
Well, sure.
I mean, fear of failure is probably a motivator.
You know?
A whole lexicon of fears, you know.
But I would say...
that I am more inspired...
or I like to think that I'm more inspired by curiosity than fear.
That may be so untrue, I don't know.
I don't know myself that well.
What's your biggest talent? Your curiosity?
-What? -Your biggest talent.
My biggest talent...
I'm not so good at big and small things.
Like number one, number two.
I try to be curious, yeah, I do.
I do try to not take things for granted.
Just look at them slightly askew, without...
And I like to try to use these little tricks.
To be able to do that.
And one that a friend of mine told me, which, maybe you'll like this one...
Wait, do you have the same "a" and "the" Greek articles for things?
No, according to the gender, it changes.
So you don't have "a" or "the".
We do. We're gonna get it, don't worry.
If you tell the story, we're gonna understand.
Okay, good. So, in English,
-"a" is more general. -Yes, we have that.
"A lake". "A tree".
And then there's "the tree", "the lake".
And so, if you're driving, she said,
well, just change the article.
Instead of "I'm driving down the road"
change it to "I'm driving down a road".
And it changes everything.
Because it's not the road to the house
or the road to your job of something. It's a road.
And suddenly you find yourself looking at things in a different way.
"Oh, look at the way that light is coming through that grove."
It helps...
to see things a little bit fresher, I guess.
Like E.E. Cummings. "Somewhere I've Never Travelled."
Yeah. Yeah.
But you can just... Well, you know what they say,
that you can never cross the same river.
So I guess that change is always there.
And even if you do drive the same road every single day,
it's never the same, because you are not.
And it's either later or earlier. So, yeah, always.
You can say that for sure.
I'm glad we got that cleared up.
Who are the people that you ask things when you want an answer?
Do you call your friends? Do you...
Because for you... You look like a person who have all these answers.
So, for people who have this look of "I have the answers, I know things"
it becomes a luxury to be able to ask.
So, when you want to ask who are the people you turn to?
It's...
I have a lot of people!
And some of them are not alive.
And this is another exercise that I find really helpful.
It's a kind of Tibetan thing again, with Mingyur Rinpoche, that says:
You try to imagine a tree. It's called a Jewel Tree.
A huge tree and on this tree you put everybody that you admire.
They could be, you know, your uncle Al,
it can be Gandhi, it can be Dylan, it can be the Buddha,
it can be any... Aristotle. All of those people, put them up there.
And they are... And recognize that they are
exclusively for you, to help you, they are here to help you.
And you look at this tree and you
understand that is all available to you.
And so, they...
I have a lot of heroes also.
So, I have people that I really like.
And so, I ask myself what they might do in a situation.
If I am in a bad situation, I just think what would they do.
And I try to get some courage from that.
It's one of the reasons I like biographies.
They have really dark parts of them.
Parts where the hero is having a really rough time
and it's just like "everything is falling apart."
It is easy to be a nice person when everything is going your way.
It's not so easy when things are falling apart and you know...
It's really hard.
Even when I was in high school,
I used to have this list of, I called them, "great people".
These people where in my high school.
They were a little ahead and I would watch them.
During that time, not when they were winning trophies
or winning the debates in school.
But when they lost the debate.
And I would go and watch what they did with that.
So...
I think also loss is a really amazing thing
which you can learn so much from,
when things fall apart.
So, I think it's a really useful time
to see who you are and what you want. And so,
not that I look forward to things falling apart
but I try, when they do,
to try and think "this is amazing"!
"Why was I so afraid of this?"
And it helps me to realize that
it's the best time to make something, the best time.
You know, I like to quote Willie Nelson on this.
He was saying,
about regret. "If you didn’t have regrets
there would be hardly any music".
And I think that it's
really a great time to try to work
when things are just so bad.
Do you think that you have
experienced already the biggest loss in your life?
Yes, because I don't know the rest of my life.
I can't compare to the bigger losses that are to come.
So far, I've had the biggest and the smallest and medium, as well.
And I do find that it's a really...
good time to do things.
To reflect.
To reflect and to act. To take action.
You can also,
you don't have to sit there while all is falling on top of you.
You can also... you don't have to be passive when you are reflecting.
You said once that you felt like losing your country when
the U.S. invaded Iraq.
But when you lose a person that you love,
what kind of action can you take?
There is a lot of things because, I think,
when one of the things that I find, happens
when I have experienced death of people I love
that it is a kind of release of love.
It's not the end of it, it's just an enormous
torrent of it.
And maybe that is what happens in death, that gets released!
I don't know but I have seen it and experienced it.
So, it's quite a
an extremely energetic situation of, like, an explosion.
I think!
But many people have so many different experiences with death.
Well, because we had this discussion,
backstage.
Could you just tell us the story regarding
how "Can you dig it" came to life as an expression?
-Can you tell our audience? -Yes!
Because, I think that this is an action that you can take
having experienced the loss of a person you may love.
-"Can you dig it?" -Oh!
Okay, well!
We were talking about where language comes from
and I was just saying that there is a beautiful book, "Deep Blues"
by Robert Palmer, he writes about beats.
He is writing about how beats started from different parts of Africa
and as these people were enslaved and taken to the New World,
they were often taken to similar places.
People from Ghana went to Louisiana.
People from Nigeria area,
Nigerian area, which was not Nigeria then,
were taken to West Virginia and so on.
And those...
rhythms of the music of those people
tended to...
stay, somewhat, intact.
And his story, was the story of jazz.
And he talks about how those beats
were changed in the South-East of the United States
and drifted up the Mississippi river to Chicago and became jazz.
That's the story of beats, but along the way he told the story New Orleans.
Some New Orleans guys who were jazz musicians, who always play for funerals.
Funerals in New Orleans are hugely ornate things.
They go on forever and there is really beautiful, fantastic music.
So these guys had been playing.
The black bands. And they come to this cemetery,
and because they were also the workers,
they were also the ones that would dig the graves.
So, that was the origin of the phrase "Can you dig it?"
So, can you dig a grave and can you dig a beat, can you do this beat.
in a way
it makes sense to me just because
grief and work and music
there is a lot of interplay in those things.
I am going to keep that sentence of yours
that connects everything in life.
Would we pass the mics to our audience to come up with questions?
-That would be fun. -Yes!
Hello! Excellent, perfect!
So, it's a great pleasure having you here.
It's such an interesting discussion.
In some of these questions,
apart from the others that were more concentrated
in the political part of your work,
and also in parts of your artistic life,
you mentioned quite a lot about your meditation experience.
How much you think this experience,
this experience of, how can we say it, of
clear light affected your work.
As a spiritual being and as a person also, at the same time.
Well, I don't make a distinction between that, so much.
Even though I am a student of Buddhism,
I see it as the same. Being a Buddhist, being an artist, is the same!
Because it's about asking exactly the same questions.
What is it? What is this?
And, so...
Also, I love the fact that there is absolutely no dogma.
For an artist, this is just like crack
to find something.
There is nobody in charge. There is nobody in charge.
There are no rules, it's all up to you. You are in charge.
And it's terrifying.
And also...
it's a really wonderful way to try to explore the world.
And trust yourself to do that!
Not just kind of absorb other people's rules.
You really try to find what it is yourself. So...
And it's about...
it's, I suppose...
The reason I did this in the beginning
was because I was having trouble concentrating.
And a friend said,
"I did this retreat, a silent retreat.
I was very scattered and at the end of this thing my mind was like a beam
and I could shift it over here, shift it over there.
The chatter had stopped and I was like, "I want a mind like a beam".
I went to this place in western Massachusetts, where I still go.
And it's Vipassana, a type of Buddhism.
And they said
"Welcome to the retreat.
You are here because you are in pain."
I said "No, I am not in pain. I am here to get a mind like a beam."
They said "You are in pain" I said "No, beam".
Pain, beam! It was a really ridiculous conversation.
Gradually I realized that they were right.
Because it was based on
well, pain stores.
When something happens and you don't scream.
You put it somewhere.
In psychoanalysis, you look for those things through language.
Through stories.
In this exercise, let's say,
you find it through your body.
I trust my body more than I do in my storytelling abilities, you know.
Because I can just be too
carried away with words.
Your body doesn't lie.
Your body has a mind of its own, let's say.
And it will retain things.
So, for example, in this case
they feel that every time you have anger
it goes right to your liver.
If you meditate for 18 hours a day, like we did,
you are in pain most of the time.
And you actually realize,
that it is associated with emotions.
So, literally, if you have a heart ache,
literally your heart hurts.
And you experience all those emotions.
Anger is in your liver.
Rage is in your jaw, you can feel it in your jaw.
And while it's doing that, you are like "whoa!"
You are a library of pain.
And you look around in your body and you find it. And it's really...
very clear.
It's not theoretical at all.
This is what I like about it.
You get this super clear message
of what you are experiencing.
And you are not labeling some other thing.
It's right there and tells you all that stuff.
This is why...
And then, further in the nature of mind study,
it really is about...
I am sure, many have done this kind of things. Your thoughts are clouds...
I have a Swiss teacher, who is also a really wonderful teacher.
And many Buddhists say,
"Imagine your mind as a clear sky.
The clouds are the thoughts and you let them go by.
They don't bother you! Let them go by.
It's like you are a mother at a park, watching your kids play.
You don't have to play their games, but you are watching.
You let them do what they do.
Because he is Swiss, he said "Imagine that your mind is a little lake."
Oh, you are so Swiss!
"And your thoughts are little boats. They come and go, here comes another."
What I liked especially about this guy, is that he said
"Now, try to picture the wind that is blowing those boats.
What kind of wind is blowing a boat? Is it fierce?
Like winter wind? Or is it a soft breeze?
Where do your thoughts come from?
What is the engine down there that is driving you?"
So, this is what I find fascinating about this.
It's nice to have interesting thoughts and so on.
The art world is full of interesting thoughts.
What is the engine? You know!
You, as a person, what is your engine?
Where are they coming from?
I find that really, really helpful
in my life, to think of how that works.
Mr. Voudouklaris?
I would like to ask you, if, of course, you wish
to share a memory
from some people that you have crossed paths with
and in one case, more than crossed.
And these people, are William S. Burroughs,
Brian Eno,
and, of course, Lou Reed.
-Well, here is Bill. -Exactly.
And John Giorno
who is a really wonderful poet.
He did a thing called, "Dial a poem".
You'd punch in some phone numbers on an old dial phone and hear a poem.
And Peros, who is, as I mentioned before,
he is the person who taught me the word "you".
He wasn't talking about "I...". He was always about
"You!" And this guy, he was a terrifying guy!
He came out of the '50s and
into a really polite America.
Where the grass was just perfect and all the little lawns.
Everyone had nice lives and everyone was barbecuing.
Here comes uncle Bill. "It's uncle Bill!"
And we were like, "Hide, it's uncle Bill!"
And he just talked about...
his work which was hilarious!
Really dark!
Really, really funny!
And just...
Anyway, we did some touring together.
He, also, did not like...
Bill liked guns and he didn't like women.
Speaking of guns and women.
We got along, I think, because we met at something called a Nova Convention.
And I was using a filter that lowered my voice like that.
I was wearing a tuxedo and I was sitting in the backstage on a desk.
And Bill was like
"So, you are on next. Right?" And I was like...
"Yeah." And suddenly I realized "Oh, he thinks I am a boy."
"He thinks I am a boy." So, this is how we met.
And he was hitting on me and I was like "Wow! This is weird."
So, anyway!
We became friends and we did this tour together.
He would always be on the parking lot, ahead of the show,
doing target practice.
Not everyone is perfect. Anyway!
I wrote a song for him, called "Language Is A Virus (From Outer Space)".
And I have been thinking about that as COVID is like passing around.
It is a strange thing for a writer to say
that language is a disease.
Communicable by mouth.
So, now that everyone is having a mask on
you realize virus, one of the reasons it's hanging on so long
it's because virus is also a language.
And it's not alive.
It has much in common with language.
It's highly contagious, it's replicable,
it can go viral.
It is...
And it's very hard to parse
because it keeps changing, it's always morphing.
Anyway.
So, Bill was...
He was really deceptive.
He was one of these cranky guys who is super crusty.
And...
a very, very sweet person actually.
And...
You also asked about Brian Eno and also Lou.
I would tell one thing about Brian Eno. It was...
He is super positive person, you know.
And he is also one of my heroes. I think of him...
He has been on this stage, in discussion.
-Oh, yeah! -He has left his mark as well.
Oh, he did! Oh, yeah!
He is a very, very
positive person, but also he is always looking at things
from another angle.
I was thinking of what he was saying.
He loves fading things out.
He does really long fades in music. Really long, painfully long fades.
And I was asking "What are you doing?"
"How do things end?
Do they just go off into the distance until you just can't see them?"
He likes it because it is like you're walking away from the music.
It is still happening over there and you are moving away.
And it's still always happening
Don't worry! It's not actually ending.
I think he had a worry it would end and he didn't want it to end.
You walk away and distance takes you, makes it seem quieter.
So it wasn't like...
I remember being at the studio with him many times
with this interminable fade.
And it was like... just fall asleep.
He has a very meditative way of thinking of music.
My studio used to have a big window at the Hudson river.
And we'd always look at the river,
as the way to decide whether the music was any good.
We were playing the last mix and we were looking at the river.
It didn't matter if it was fast or slow. It wasn't a matter of mood.
It was about like this resonance, I would have to say,
the resonance it had with the river.
With the natural motion of the river.
Even if it was choppy and rhythmic.
Or if it was like...
In other words,
if it goes with the river, it goes on the record, it was our motto.
It was infallible.
Because, it was just something that would be...
not forced.
But contained.
And had certain kind of coherent motion.
And was not like, pushed so hard.
It had its own integrities on energy to do.
And you also asked about Lou, my husband of 21 years.
We were together 21 years. So...
Let's see, what can I say? You know, there is...
Almost nothing you can't say about your best friend.
And except that, you know...
it really irritated me that he could write a song in his mind.
And it would be done!
That's the only thing I will say about him.
Other than the fact that I loved him more than anyone else.
He would just see a whole song and he would just write it down.
A lot of people, myself included, are always tinkering with things.
I have to change this...
And he was "No! That's done! It's perfect."
And I was like "How? What is this kind of confidence?"
I was in awe of the confidence.
So, I try to
think of his confidence
when I lose my confidence.
And just realize, it is not about how you appear to other people.
It is really how you have your feet on the ground.
And that you can...
be your own anchor, let's say.
It is also, Tai Chi as much as music,
for him as a way to be in the world,
in a way that was very centered.
And not really looking around for other people to say "yes" or "no".
He was not doing that!
This is a very, very crucial thing to think about.
Who are you? What does it mean to be actually true to yourself.
True to yourself. And...
I guess that was invented here.
"Know thyself" is probably the biggest key thing that you know,
I think of when I think of Lou.
He was able to do...
Nobody is completely perfect in that,
but he really had that as his center. So...
I find that that's a really useful thing to think about.
To find your own center.
It has nothing to do, it certainly has something to do with other people,
but it's all up to you!
May I ask for a favor? Since time is up as it says.
Yes, get off the stage!
When somebody asks you about being yourself and who you are,
we tend to answer by saying our name.
May I just ask you to say "I am Laurie Anderson"?
Hi, I am Laurie Anderson.
And may I ask the audience to say the name "Laurie Anderson"
like using the most Greek accent you can come up with?
Like one, two, three!
Laurie Anderson!
This is who you are in Greek! Thank you so much!
Thank you for your interpretation.
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