Laurie Anderson NASA's artist in residence
chillled
Commission From NASA
By Anne Hull, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Performance artist Laurie Anderson thought the phone call was a prank.
How would you like to be NASA's artist-in-residence?
The offer was legit: The space agency was bestowing a $20,000 commission
on the 57-year-old Anderson to produce a piece of work completely at her
creative freedom.
NASA began its art program in 1963 but never before had it tapped a
resident artist, nor had it pushed the aesthetic envelope so boldly by
choosing a performer whose large-scale theatrical productions blended
"Star Trek" and Melville. Anderson is no Faith Hill.
The pixie-haired classically trained violinist has approached her
assignment like a journalist, visiting the Space Telescope Science
Institute in Baltimore, the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA
Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in California.
The experience has been "overwhelming and wonderful at once," Anderson
said recently in a telephone interview from her loft in New York.
The idea of an avant-garde electronic fiddler hanging out with rocket
geeks at NASA's research centers may seem like an odd collaboration. At
the Ames center in Silicon Valley, Anderson stood inside a virtual
airport control tower to view scenes of Mars terrain, taking photos and
recording notes in a small red notebook. The researchers' reaction to
their visitor was mixed, according to a NASA newsletter. One confessed
to being a huge fan; another doubted the partnership of art and science.
"What's she going to do, write a poem?" the researcher asked.
In fact, Anderson's passions run parallel with the pocket-protector
crowd. She has collaborated with the Interval Research Corp. in
California to design a wireless musical instrument called the Talking
Stick, which emits sound when touched.
She intends to produce a range of works from her two-year NASA
commission, including a film on the moons of the solar system that will
debut at the 2005 World Exposition in Japan.
Anderson said her affiliation with the space agency has sustained her
spiritually, especially as the war in Iraq has dragged on and the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal has unfolded.
"Frankly, I find living in American culture at the moment really
problematic," she said. "But then when I think of NASA, it's the one
thing that feels future-oriented in a way that's inspiring. The greening
of Mars or building a stairway to Mars, these are unbelievable aspirations."
Her voice ignites with wonder as she describes glimpsing the nebula for
the first time, "like watching stars being born in outer space."
Anderson grew up one of eight children in Chicago, graduating from
Barnard College in 1969 and earning a graduate degree in sculpture from
Columbia University. She took her art to the streets of downtown New
York. She once stood on a block of ice, playing her violin while wearing
ice skates. When the ice melted, the show was over.
A contemporary of avant-garde composers Philip Glass and Brian Eno,
Anderson is best known for her one-woman theatrical productions that
combine music, video, projected image and storytelling. She scored a
fluke radio hit in 1981 with "O Superman" from her album "Big Science."
In 1999, Anderson staged "Songs and Stories From Moby Dick," an
interpretation of Herman Melville's novel.
Her NASA commission puts her in the company of 250 other artists who
have contributed to the space agency's art program, including Robert
Rauschenberg and Norman Rockwell.
In the early days of the space race, artists would stand in the eerie
flatness of Florida and sketch the radio towers and rocket gantries,
huge metal hulking forms that sprang up around Cape Canaveral. For the
1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon, NASA placed artists at the Florida
launch site, at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and even on the
recovery ship in the mid-Pacific Ocean, where an artist awaited the
splashdown of the returning astronauts. Record crowds viewed the artwork
that year at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Some commissions have been specific, such as when jazz musician Jane Ira
Bloom was asked to write and perform a symphonic composition to honor
NASA's return to flight after the Challenger accident.
Funding for the art program has fluctuated with the agency's budget. In
the 1990s, as NASA's workforce was trimmed, commissions for the program
dwindled to four or five pieces a year, paying artists a modest
honorarium of $2,500. Between 2000 and 2002, funding for the program
increased from $25,000 to $100,000. This year it represents $50,000 of
NASA's $15 billion budget.
Why should NASA set aside money for paintings and music? "Art is what's
left behind of history," said Bertram Ulrich, curator of the NASA Art
Program. "It's a way to document something for future generations."
NASA is not the only government agency that funds art. The Federal
Reserve Board spent $183,000 for its art program in 2003, according to
spokesman David Skidmore. Other agencies with art budgets include the
Army, the Air Force, the State Department and the Interior Department.
Unlike a painting that will hang in a boardroom, Anderson's creation for
NASA will debut at the 2005 World Expo and show for six months. (A U.S.
premiere of the film will come later.) Anderson has also been
commissioned by the expo to compose music for a Japanese garden, and she
hints that her NASA research is now seeding all her creative forces and
is likely to yield more work besides the film.
"When I began to think about a Japanese rock garden, it was very much
about time," the artist said. "You have a plum tree in blossom,
repeating time in its briefest form. A blossom falls, that blossom falls
on a rock, a stream flows through."
Her logic continues, breathlessly. "Here are these rovers up on Mars.
You have robots up there looking for life, for water. Rovers are being
trained to think like geologists, pick up a rock and crush it. One of
the problems the JPL scientists are having is where the rock is and
where the rover thinks the rock is. What is consciousness?"
Anderson doubts her desire to go up in space will be accommodated by
NASA. Here on Earth, she lives with her paramour, Lou Reed, and her
terrier, Lola Belle. The realities of life on the ground in a post-Sept.
11 America are ever present: Last year the performer was handcuffed and
held in custody at the St. Louis airport for two hours when detectives
mistook her customized musical equipment for a homemade bomb.
Anderson recently quit smoking. She figured that a nonsmoking astronaut
would have a much greater chance of launching into space than one who puffs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15916-2004Jun29.html
Scotius
I once heard Roger Ebert (pretty sure it was him) talking
about her, back in the very late '80s or early '90s, I believe. I saw
a clip from a video of hers, and frankly, I thought she looked
satanic...and sounded it too. She was just way the hell to weird for
me to appreciate her "music". I think NASA muffed up on this one.
I know there are people who will say "...but she's a brilliant
artist, so you must just be an ignoramous", but as long as she's with
Lou Reed, I don't think I need any more proof that she's about as
weird as they get ... and him too!
Billie
>about her, back in the very late '80s or early '90s, I believe. I saw
>a clip from a video of hers, and frankly, I thought she looked
>satanic...and sounded it too. She was just way the hell to weird for
>me to appreciate her "music". I think NASA muffed up on this one.
> I know there are people who will say "...but she's a brilliant
>artist, so you must just be an ignoramous", but as long as she's with
>Lou Reed, I don't think I need any more proof that she's about as
>weird as they get ... and him too!
>
>
flea markets and one of the nicest folks you'd ever meet.
Billie
Please submit your suggestions for 'Website of the Day' to: pusss...@aol.com
http://artwc.org/Billie/AGCWEBSITES04.html
BLIND ITEMS:
http://artwc.org/Billie/BLINDITEMS/2004/MAYJUNE2004.html
Leigh Melton
> I once heard Roger Ebert (pretty sure it was him) talking
>about her, back in the very late '80s or early '90s, I believe. I saw
>a clip from a video of hers, and frankly, I thought she looked
>satanic...and sounded it too. She was just way the hell to weird for
>me to appreciate her "music". I think NASA muffed up on this one.
I remember getting a copy of "O Superman" as one of those little
flexible vinyl singles they used to put in magazines - I think this
one came from "Art Today" or other rag I used to buy for ghod knows
why. Anyway, I was sufficiently intrigued to buy the 12" vinyl and
the B side is a little ditty called "Walk The Dog" which features her
doing a Dolly Parton impersonation (among other things) which is
PRICELESS.
Part of "O Superman" used to be my phone message. "Hello, I'm not in
right now, please leave a message at the sound of the tone AH AH AH AH
AHHHHHHHHHH!"
Leigh
--
Consequences, shmonsequences, as long as I'm rich. - D. Duck
rb1_622
Well, he did write "Satellite Of Love." ;)
rb1
myname2use4now
"Billie " <pusss...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040707204438...@mb-m06.aol.com...
In my youth, I was such an oddball kid in my own way, and one day in high
school during a math test, our teacher (a nun) decided to play the radio
during a math test. She had heard that a certain level of background noise
helped concentration. So as I'm taking this test, I hear "O Superman" come
on the radio. It was one of my favorite songs at the time, if only because
it was so different. So instead of being able to concentrate on the test, I
was miles away in my mind as I listened to the music. It didn't do much for
my grade on the test...but to me, to hear my favorite, quirky song in a room
full of people I essentially hated was somehow in my own oddball way, worth
it.
I guess my point is, it's a-ok if you don't get her music. Plenty of people
don't, and I sure as hell don't get Lou Reed. But for me, it was never about
her brilliance as an artist...it was more about her spirit, and the art of
her music. It was as if the quirky adult performance artist reached out to
the quirky oddball Catholic school girl to say, "hey, it's going to be ok.
listen to this little tune I have here." And at the time, it was all I
needed. :)
maddie
Strange Angels is still one of my favourite albums ever. A wonderful
choice by NASA, kind of gives me faith in American Culture.
"They say that heaven is like TV,
A perfect little world,
where no-one really needs you....
Well I was out in my four door with the top down.
And I looked up and there they were:
Millions of tiny teardrops
just sort of hanging there
And I didn't know whether to laugh or cry
And I said to myself: What next big sky?
Strange angels - singing just for me
Their spare change falls on top of me"
can't wait to see what this experience inspires....
maddie