Laurie Anderson visit to DU - Sept. 1, 2006

The Laurie Anderson performance was not really what I had expected. I expected, well a performance, rather than a talk of her artwork in multimedia. She began by describing her job as Artist-in-Residence at NASA along with showing pictures that she had taken while on the job. This segued into her project in Japan, a garden. She showed us the details that went into creating such a wonderland of nature and media. She then transitioned into reading a story about her rat terrier Lolabel and turkey vultures. This was accompanied by a recording of what sounded like slowed church bells. Once finished, she showed us a clip of a film that was shown at a film festival in Japan. She told us of the difficulty of trying to translate the exact meaning of the film into Japanese. This concluded the performance.

What I thought was very interesting was the way in which she constructed and intertwined media with nature. She did things like place televisions and films among the nature, as well as place rocks that change colors among real rocks. These are things that a person would not usually necessarily connect with nature or even think about putting in a garden.

I also really liked how she incorporated two completely different ideas into the garden, that of technology along with the Japanese ideas before technology. She was saying that along the path she put the characters of a tortoise, dragon and phoenix. These represent the “guardians of the park.” One photograph that really inspired me was a picture of the tortoise guardian above a rendering of the man that is seen on the WALK signs. What a way to connect technology and old beliefs. Both resemble the same…it is safe to walk here. What a connection.