Laurie Anderson (b. 1947, Illinois) is a globally recognised pioneer in integrating technology into the arts. “Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary After Film” showcased several of her live art events and performances by Anderson from the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) archive as part of MetaPlex. A three year research funded project exploring Institutional digital media archives, categorisation systems – re-evaluating how they shape narratives within and beyond institutional structures.
Anderson, an American avant-garde artist, musician, and filmmaker recognised for her significant contributions to performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects initially trained in both violin and sculpture. In 1982, she released her debut album, Big Science, which was followed by several studio and live albums. Anderson starred in and directed the concert film Home of the Brave in 1986. Her creative work spans theatrical productions, documentary films, voice acting, art installations, and a CD-ROM. She is widely regarded as a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several musical devices for her recordings and performances.
Anderson has performed extensively across the United States and internationally, showcasing a variety of shows that range from simple spoken-word performances to elaborate multimedia events. Her major works include United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick, a multimedia stage performance based on Herman Melville’s novel. This performance toured internationally throughout 1999 and 2000. In the fall of 2001, she toured the United States and Europe with a band, performing music from Life on a String. Notable solo works include Happiness, which premiered in 2001 and toured internationally through the spring of 2003.
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Laurie Anderson’s visual work has been exhibited in major museums across the United States and Europe. In 2003, the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Lyon, France, organized a touring retrospective titled The Record of the Time: Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson. This exhibition showcased a variety of installations, audio pieces, instruments, videos, and art objects, highlighting Anderson’s career from the 1970s to her most recent works. The retrospective continued to tour internationally until 2005. As a visual artist, Anderson is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, where her exhibition The Waters Reglitterized opened in September 2005. In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art acquired her piece, Self-Playing Violin, featured in the Making Music exhibition in the fall of that year.
In 1997, she curated a two-week Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Her orchestral work, Songs for Amelia Earhart, premiered at Carnegie Hall in February 2000, performed by the American Composers Orchestra. This piece later toured Europe with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. Additionally, it was featured at the Groningen Festival in 2008, which honoured Laurie Anderson, performed by the Noord Nederlands Orkest.
In 2002, Laurie Anderson was appointed as NASA’s first artist-in-residence, which culminated in her touring solo performance, The End of the Moon, in 2004. Her recent projects include a series of audio-visual installations and a high-definition film titled “Hidden Inside Mountains,” created for World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. In 2007, Anderson received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contributions to the arts.
In 2008, she completed a two-year worldwide tour of her performance piece Homeland, which was released as an album by Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Anderson’s solo performance Delusion premiered at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February 2010 and toured internationally throughout 2011. Additionally, a retrospective of her visual and installation work opened in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2010 and later travelled to Rio de Janeiro.
Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary After Film was curated by Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel. MetaPlex is a work by Peter Cornwell, produced in collaboration with the New Media Department at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA).
