Laurie Anderson is a performance artist from Illinois whose work spans across many fields including visual art, poetry, photography, film, and music. She began performing in the 1970s and found fame in 1980 with the hit "O Superman". Her performances vary from spoken word to large multimedia events. She has published six books and her visual works have appeared in major museums. Laurie was the first artist-in-residence of NASA.
"Two Songs for Tape Bow Violin" combines spoken word, piano and tape bow violin (her own creation). The spoken word is a plain style that reminds me of a recording of John Cage's Einstein on the Beach. I think the tape bow violin is an interesting medium as it is both an instrument and an audio playback device and it is both a mechanical and electronic sound medium.
The work makes me feel quite sentimental. The piano and violin change the way we emotionally interpret the spoken words just as sound design may do for movie dialogue. I think the warped playback of the tape helps to portray a manipulated sense of time or a reliving of past events. I think this sound work was designed with a feeling in mind rather than musical form.
References:
Christian Haines. "Week 5 Audio Arts - Sound Art." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 26 August 2008.
"Laurie Anderson." Laurie Anderson Official Website. http://www.laurieanderson.com/downloads/LaurieAndersonBio.pdf (1 September 2008)
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