 
express her ideas, many of which were featured
in her concert film "Home of the brave." She
continues to create, inspire and tour today,
reaching a worldwide audience with sound,
images and creative expression. Hello, I'm
Ernie manouse, coming up on "Innerviews,"
our conversation with Laurie Anderson.
>> When it comes to art, do you ever feel
hindered by personal inability to do certain
things or do you see those as challenges to
work through problems?
>> I tend to try to get over the fear of blank
stuff, actually I did some, I wrote some software
once for writers who were afraid of the blank
page and it's kind of cool. It's a template
that is based on crime and punishment. You
start basically with a full page, a full book
and you gradually change people's names to
your friend's names and towns to your towns
and situations to your situations and pretty
soon you have a novel and no one will be able
to see that the template is actually crime
and punishment. But it's -- I've tried to
check myself like that into making things
and getting over the fear of like who am I
to say something or make something.
>> Right.
>> That's a big one for artists, things like
what do you really know that you want to share
with the world, you know.
>> Yeah.
>> When did you first realize that what you
wanted to share mattered to other people?
[11:02:03 PM]
>> Mmm. I think I had this very weird hobby
as a kid and I just had forgotten all about
this, which was writing colonial newspapers.
You know, just making them up and making up
stories about what happened in colonial towns
and then I think that had probably been aschool
assign sxment I thought that was a good idea,
I thought people would be interested in what
happened somewhere. I started making newspapers
and selling to people in the neighborhoods
and they bought them. I thought, why would
you buy that? I guess you feel sorry for the
kid selling. Make fake colonial newspapers?
But I realized that you could use your imagination
and that would be something that was interesting
to other people. You know, gets them out of
their kitchens or wherever.
>> Does art have to have an audience or is
it the expression of feeling?
>> That's a really good question. I think
maybe you could be the world's greatest painter
and no one has ever seen your paintings, possible.
And that you have never shown them to anybody
and they're actually the world's greatest
paintings. I don't think we'll ever know.
Great paintings. For myself, I really like
to make sure that it jumps across to another
person. You know, I think that's part of it
for me.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know what art is, I don't try to
figure out what the rules are of good art.
I mean, I don't really know.
>> I'm going to pretend you do to ask this
next question. My question is, when is the
art art? Is it when you conceive it? Is it
when you produce it? Is it when someone else
see its?
For you, when does it become art?
>> That is like a cooking question. When does
it become a came? I don't know, intentionally
a cake, when people eat it, when they remember
it. All of those times. I think it's a -- for
me sometimes most work of art when I'm imagining
it and I will never be able to realize this
great idea N. Fact, I feel like I've never
finished anything, I just stop working on
it because I can't think of how to fix it,
you know. I don't like wrapping a bow, that's
done, it's so perfect, it's like, now it is
ready to ship out and everyone will -- you
know, I don't have this feeling of done ever.
>> That fascinates me from the fact of your
recording career.
>> The record company, too. They are like,
you are never done.
>> I can understand when you are doing performances,
they evolve and grow and change from audience
to audience, but when somebody says press
it out vinyl for CD or digital recording.
>> Pull it out of your hands. No, no, it is
not ready.
>> When is that moment for you?
>> When they take it away from you.
>> You would put it on as long as have you
it?
>> I don't know, I think if I were a painter
and I had a painting, I would come in at night
and work on it probably more as well.
>> Is it hard when something has been perm
aniz ed. That is not even a word.
>> We'll make it a word.
>> Hard then to reproduce it for an audience
because coming from where you want to work
and evolve and change but now you told an
audience this is a product, now I'm presenting
it, I'm an artist, I want to continue to interpret,
has that happened for you?
>> Sure. I mean, I should leave a little room
like that, I just wrote a -- I did a quartet
and there's the score and they play the score,
but there are times in it where you go, play
whatever you feel like, so it is built in
and even if you think you are following perfect
score obviously every musician know there
is is never a show that was like another show.
>> Yeah.
>> Always really different. And too I realize
that the place has a huge part in the show,
especially outside. I've really started enjoying
playing outside. So notes go off into the
night and you know they bounce against walls,
just something beautiful about playing summer
nights and festivals I really enjoy.
>> Take me back. So teaching very nerl your
career, you were out there as a teacher-teacher.
I put the quotes up for "Teacher," teacher.
You are teaching peep and he will exploring
things, but you taught class. What does that
teach you about be nothing front of audience?
How did the two work together? Did you take
something away from that you continue to hold
on to today?
>> Yeah. I think I've got a couple things.
One was maybe the thing you are thinking of
is that short career I had teaching Egyptian
architecture and sculpture. Not something
I knew that much about actually.
>> Really?
>> No. So it was night school and I had a
job, I knew enough about it, so -- but I would
forget, you know, so I would see it big slide
come up and it would be some template, what
is that? I couldn't remember a single thing
about it, not one single thing. Just, you
know, make things up. And the students write
it down and I would test them on it. So eventually
I was like, you know, this is supposedly history
class and, you know, free form fiction. So
I stopped, but not before I was fired.
>> Ah, okay.
>> Just right about the time I was fired.
>> When you were doing that, had you already
started doing performance art per Se?
>> Not really. I was doing sculpture and this
is my moonlight kind of gig. Night school
moonlight thing. I was sculptor by day and
ologist at night. But I did learn it is fun
to be in the dark and people are listening
to things, you can kind of say whatever you
want. And who knows what histories anyway
and what fiction is. I mean, I could barely
tell. Most of my friends have the same problem
I do, what is called flaelt their life, they
made it up and --
>> Fascinating thing about memory being a
filter and that we retell stories of our own
lives how they start to change through what
we remember them as.
>> Of course.
>> Doesn't necessarily mean that was the fact
of the situation, but becomes our own truth.
>> Yeah, the stories we trod out as me as
a kid, you know, and that one gets really,
you know, threadbarer if you tell it over
and over. That was really you as a kid? Well,
it's a story, your version.
>> Did you really make those newspapers about
colonial time?
>> I did make those colonial newspapers, yeah.
But it is one of the stories that actually
it's not, I just remember that kind of got
a box of stuff from my childhood. Old movies
I'm putting into a movie I'm making for some
weird reason. The weird reason, they look
beautiful. Super eight films.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Glued together and the glue is on the frame.
They are beautiful. So beautiful.
>> What are they films of?
>> They are films of our lake and our -- the
woods where -- the woods back there and family
vacations and people goofing around.
>> Kind of just --
>> Family stuff.
>> Things you were creating and play withing
certain toys.
>> No, no. We -- there was some of that, but
not a lot.
>> I read somewhere there was a period you
had an accident and you were laid up for six
months or so with the problem, you had hurt
your back, broke your back. I'm starting to
notice a trend with guests we've had on the
show of children at a certain period in time
taken away from other children and the creative
processing those people seem to burst on to
the scene later in life.
>> Interesting.
>> I'm curious if you thought about that?
>> I'll bet that is true. You really do get
-- learn a lot of things like that, first
of all, if it is life-threatening, you realize
I'm just a kid and I'm going to die, you know.
And I mean, I was in -- I broke my back and
was paralyzed and I was in the ward with all
the kids who had been burned and that was
at that time, let's just put the kids together.
It will be okay. And so, my memory of it was
actually a memory of it being how stupid the
doctors were and how boring it was and how
the volunteers were so naive and you know,
they were reading children's books when I
was reading, you know, war and peace, you
know. I was 12. I was a twirp, a know it all
12 year old who thinks adults are idiots.
So that was how I remembered it until once
I was telling that story and in the middle
I just got a sound picture of it, which was
-- the way the ward sounded at night and the
sounds of all the children who were crying
and screaming and the sounds, the sounds I
had never really heard before, the sounds
children make when they are dying and it was
like it was just like immediately back there
physically through sound, through the memory
of sound and so I realized that I had told
the story from my own little heroic point
of view and really forgotten the -- where
I was.
And like a lot of memory, you know, I was
too afraid to remember what it really was
like. You know, it was so anyway, that was
a -- one of my childhood stories I just remembered
from one side and remembered oh, yeah, there
was this whole other aspect of how afraid
I was.
>> Fascinates me about the story on a whole
different level, so many of us remember our
past, remember things through the visual and
then when you talk about the sound, how much
more powerful that is, how that can change
so much and when we remember the sounds, the
feeling of that, how strongly yet most of
us remember things through visual as opposed
to the sound, I think.
>> Dreams are often quite silent, aren't they?
>> Yeah.
>> Just things that drift in and out, but
the sound can go trite your heart, just like,
whoa, you know. It's so much more physical
for me.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, can make you dance, make you
cry, can -- it is like so invasive and your
eyes are just gliding over things and kind
of wondering, is that real, is that not real.
They are really kind of weirdly neutral, not
as emotionally engaging, you are just like
-- so one of the things I really love doing
in work is trying to play with those two things
of seeing and hearing something at the same
time and kind of like a lot of times in your
life, you are in a situation where what you
are seeing is not what you are hearing. Maybe
someone is lying to you or whatever. Which
am I trusting? My eyes or ears? You're often
in that kind of crack of figuring that out.
That is what is so much fun about being multi-media
artist. You get to play with those feelings
of -- well, I would say doubt and I want to
just mention something I saw a couple weeks
ago in Z Urich, a really beautiful church
and the stained glass windows had been remade
by this artist, very beautiful visual artist.
He cut salami thin gate into slices, the light
would come through and he had taken 10 of
the windows and redone them as stained glass.
They were very, very beautiful like the chaos
of stone at the beginning of the world and
creation of the world and various stories
and stone and light. One of the windows was
really ugly and it was like, why is this here?
It was one of those face space situations
where you don't know what is positive or negative,
they look like people's silhouette and the
shape of a face and back to the silhouette.
Looking at these and because of the way that
stone in this case, transparent whitish grayish
drab stone was cut, the silhouettes were waivering
and you realized here is a window in a church
about doubt and I thought, this is so incredible.
It was one of the first times in my life,
I was so proud to be a protestant, one of
the ones who just has their doubts.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, it wasn't about the leaf, I'm
not trying to say belief, I have plenty of
my own beliefs that mean a lot to me, but
I had never seen doubt with light blind it
like that. This is fantastically inspiring.
>> Does it bother you when people try to read
into what you're presenting, when you talk
about doubt, seeing doubt, getting that excited
about knowing that is part of what they're
putting together there and even they have
question, does it bother you when people look
at your work and have absolute opinions on
something they have seen you do? Is there
a --
>> Oh, no. There is no set thing that this
stuff means, I'm not -- you know, I think
everyone brings their own world to every word.
You say, forget abstract things like doubt,
just say dog, say dog and a different dog
springs to everybody's mind.
Somebody has a big flop labradoreeor a little
sweet thing. That is just a noun, concrete
noun. We have wildly different minds, we can't
even talk to each other at all.
>> Yeah. Where did you start with fascination
of the work you have gone into? With the words
and meaning? The sound of the words when you
start the audio exploration? Where did it
start for you?
>> Let's see. I think --
>> Is that a fair question?
>> It is, but you know, it's so mixed because
I'm not so much -- I think of myself as a
writer, I don't write stuff down. It's usually
a spoken thing. The way things are spoken,
changes everything. You can say, hatred in
a way that doesn't call to mind hatred. All
sorts of things with the way context and shape
and expression. So you can't really pull the
word and the way it sounds and what it means
apart. They are very balanced. I'm not sure,
but I do think for me the concept of freedom
is very bound to sound somehow. I mean just
thinking this little film I'm making for TV
now a century of it, a long section on the
tibetan dead called the great liberation through
hearing and that is for the sense that frees
you. It also is the sense that supposedly
is the last one you have as you die so that
your eyes go out, your brain flat lines, you
know, your heart stops, but your hairs are
still hammering.
They yell you're dead, you're dead now. Look
for two lights and you'll find, you know,
don't go to the near one gto the far one.
They shout instructions about what to do at
that point. They use liberation and sound
are for them found.
>> That is fascinating. I love that. So are
you still discovering and fascinated by what
you find or do you hit a point where you see
what your work should be and you're trying
to find fresh expression for what you want
to get across in your career?
>> I'm not like that really. I'm just somebody
who likes to try different ways to make things.
I'm just a maker. I don't think so theoretically.
Recently I've been making really, really big
and really pretty bad paintings. And why,
I don't really, I love to make these big gestures
and what am I trying to say? I don't even
know. It's hard to say what an image or color
means sometimes, it means a lot of things
and sometimes you can spend huge number of
pages talking about let's say gback it freedom
for example, it's like nobody even knows what
you are talking about then you see a giant
blue painting, just blue, that's it. You go,
that's so liberating and you feel free, you
feel liberated. So I don't know how to get
to these places, many ways to do that, many
ways to do it. So yeah.
>> We talked right before we started to tape
this, I mentioned "O Superman" and how I had
gone back and listening to it fresh now and
how different it means to me today, how different
I interpret it today and the meaning I take
with it with everything that has changed in
the world.
This peace existed before so many things happened,
yet the meaning changes as my experiences
have changed and I think that fascinates me.
>> Uh-huh. That is funny. That's a song about
really the failure of technology in many ways.
♪♪ ♪♪
♪♪ ♪♪
>> It is also about a war that is still going
on and it just changed his name 17 times since
this song was written in 1980, but the same
war and same place and about many of the same
things. And so, it's not so much like the
-- I don't feel like it's changed that much
in terms of -- my own feelings about war changed
a lot. And so I used to feel like there was
no so much you could do about it, but here
is an idea and I'm going to try out on you
because I -- I'm part of several meditation
groups and lately this is my cause and here
is the cause. The recent -- the reason for
this is because a friend's brother-in-law
recently was assassinated by an Iraq sxret
he came back and he was freaking out, he had
a gun and went into this guy's office, didn't
know him and blew his brains out and killed
him. I was like, so many of these people are
coming back and they are so destroyed. I thought,
what if we had like a boot camp on the other
end of the army service. What if instead of
treating people for PTSD and special things,
everyone was required by boot camp is -- initial
boot camp is hard to train people sometimes
to pick up a gun and aim it and kill someone.
That's not a very natural thing to do, like
shave your head off and go, you are one of
the group, forget individuality, you are in
the army now. They've got that and then when
they come back, they don't know how to drop
the gun.
>> Uh-huh.
>> This is training people to use their minds
and their bodies to figure out how to come
back in, you know, I know this is a lost cause.
I know this will never happen, but I think
it's -- I think it should happen and it would
be a wonderful thing to spend some energy
thinking about how to that cuchange things
even if you are caught in a war that is like
this, which really is, there are reasons to
be there apparently at this point, but so
many of these people are so destroyed, they
are so mangled when they come back.
>> Yeah.
>> Anyway. That's -- in answer to your question,
I mean, I used to be the kind of artist making
images and going art can't really and shouldn't
really change the world necessarily, I'm not
a prophet, I'm not out to make the world a
better place because have you to go better
for who, for you and your friends, you and
your art friends? Is that who you make it
better for? I realize also and as I get older,
that you can change things or at least can
try, you know. That seems the thing worth
changing.
>> Right.
>> It kind of reminds me of the pebble in
the stream. You can get ideas out there and
thought and talk going and it can spread.
You share ideas and people talk and communicate,
things can change.
>> They can.
>> You can change yourself, so it's -- I mean,
the real thing to start with.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow, we are out of time. Thank you so much.
>> You are so welcome.
>> Truly an honor.
>> Laurie Anderson.
