“When my father died
We put him in the ground
When my father died
It was like a whole library
Had burned down.”
OK. You’re a 77-year-old widow faced with the dread that comes with climate crisis, AI, threats of nuclear destruction, genocide, Musk, Trump and fascism? How do you respond? If you’re Laurie Anderson, you throw yourself fearlessly into and at the technology and create until you make something beautiful out of the chaos.
Ark: United States v Laurie Anderson
And then you play violin, sing, tell stories, conduct a live interview with an academic in Toronto to get a member of the audience to speak into his language-to-image AI generator, dance, conduct an interview with an AI Sigmund Freud where you’re simultaneously in the room and in the video, weave a philosophical and theological narrative around the story of the Ark and finish it all off by getting the entire audience to do Tai Chi. With a choir.
Elon Musk is the devil ha ha.
Ai Wei Wei as God!!!!!
The voice of Lou Reed?
To play God and not burn, you have to know who you are and who God is. Laurie Anderson navigated this by going to an AI research project in Adelaide which combined the Bible with everything you ever wrote or sang to try and get a handle on the concept of life and its purpose.
Apparently, she said, it sounded like her, but a lot more sure of herself…
Laurie Anderson at Factory International, Manchester – ends 25 November
Forget Glastonbury. Forget Oasis reunions. Forget everything you ever knew.
Incredibly, there were quite a few empty seats. Then again, all great art is made to smaller numbers. That’s not elitism, that’s just how things have always been. So, get off your phones, you’re alive, you don’t know for how long, so take it all in.
It’s on till the 25 November at Factory International, Manchester.
