1973 — O-Range(Edit)

Town Green, 1973 Lewisohn Stadium, City College of the City University of New York, 1973 sponsored by Vito Acconci — — "Megaphones were used as the sound system in a large empty sports stadium [ — the Lewisohn Stadium of the City University of New York on 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a large amphitheater demolished only a few months later]; ten performers [Anderson’s students] shouted stories across the field." — (Laurie Anderson) — — As with the Town Green in Rochester [the Automotive performance], listening was inscribed in the history and architecture of the Stadium, which boasted a history of large-scale musical performances for audiences of thousands between 1918 and 1966. The New York Philharmonic’s program from 26 June 1935 presents a representative medley of pieces: the prelude to Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger is followed by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor, and Three Dances from the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat by Manuel De Falla. Another typical program, from 1956, opens with directions “in the event of air raid alarm” and features the Stadium Symphony Orchestra in an all-Gershwin evening starring soprano Leontyne Price. O-Range positions the megaphone – and the amphitheater, for that matter – not so much as a musical instrument and more as a technology establishing a listening relationship, commanding attention, and creating a sense of emergency. [...] The conventional function of the car horn and the megaphone as sound technologies of alarm is unsettled by the faux-classical style of Automotive and the feminized storytelling of O-Range. — (In Lucie Vágnerová, Sirens/Cyborgs: Sound Technologies and the Musical Body, Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, 2016) — — Artists Space, then located at 155 Wooster Street, presented her debut NYC show O-Range, titled the same, in 1973 [or in January 1974 ? : Laurie Anderson, Don Gummer, Barbara Kruger January 5 – 26, 1974] and [see below]), for which she was chosen by downtown fixture Vito Acconci for the Artists Select Artists series. For the exhibition, she showed works that paired text and photography in the conceptual style-du-jour with tongue-in-cheek plays on language and food : unframed panels featuring handwritten texts, and black and white photos in a documentation style.

1972-73 — Institutional Dream Series(Edit)

A personal study of narcolepsy and dreams In this performance Laurie Anderson slept in various public places to see if the place would affect her dreams. She chose places like public bathrooms, a park bench and the public library. Institutional Dreams, took place across New York City, including at 100 Centre Street and the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan. For this series, Anderson would sleep in public sites, from Columbia University to Coney Island, as an experiment in gauging “if the place can color or control my dreams.” At the night court of 100 Centre Street, Anderson slept in one of the pews and was photographed doing so by her friend Geraldine Pontius. Her handwritten note that accompanies the slouched, sleeping portraits. Anderson notes that her dreamscape was influenced by her peaked knit cap, which alternately obscured and shown the courtroom’s light onto her face; her impressions distinctly affected by the environment in which she positioned herself. Anderson’s rather routine dream descriptions for Institutional Dreams have a resonant charge in their specific connection to impressions of place and the way they distinctly frame her memories and sensations, on both a conscious and subconscious level. Similar references to dreaming and dream states continue throughout Anderson’s work, in both her song lyrics and performances. — Source : http://lmcc.net/place/creative-insiders-laurie-anderson/

Photo by Geraldine Pontius

Coney Island January 14, 1973 I lie down near the water which is at low tide. It is bitterly cold and the sand is damp. I pull my turtleneck sweater over my face. After several minutes I begin to relax and lose consciousness. I am trying to sleep indifferent public places to see if the place can color or control my dreams. At the moment this seems like a crazy idea. I can hear the tide coming in. The water is beginning to cover my frozen feet. I’m not sure whether I’m asleep or awake so I keep my eyes shut tight. After a couple of hours I hear a loud rushing drone. It sounds like giant wave is rolling toward shore. I jump up and start to run. A large helicopter is hovering directly overhead.

Photo by Geraldine Pontius

Photo by Geraldine Pontius

South Street Seaport | The “Lettie G. Howard” starboard berth December 10, 1972. I lie down in the starboard berth and dream about a white desert in which every plant was labeled in tiny writing.

Photo by Geraldine Pontius

Women’s Bathroom | Schermerhorn Library, Columbia university April 3, 1972 I lie down on the couch where I can see the women coming in and out of the bathroom, I put a notebook over my face and place my contact lenses under my tongue. I dream that the library is an open air market and all the stacks are stalls stocked with vegetables.

Photo by Geraldine Pontius

Night Court 100 Centre Street, December 29, 1972 The first case up is Robbery and Assault. The courtroom is noisy and full of people. I rest my head against a wall running the length of the courtroom. I drift off slowly. I have the impression that dark shadows or clouds are scudding across the courtroom just below the ceiling. When I wake up I realize this sensation is produced by the peaked cap I am wearing which, with me head’s periodic bobbing, alternately obscures and reveals the bright lights which hang near the ceiling. I wake up just as the judge is confiscating our camera. “You understand of course blackmail is illegal,” he is saying. But he only makes a show of taking the film out of the camera and then hands it back.

1973 — Fully Automated Nikon (Object/Objection/Objectivity)(Edit)

a later reference : Dark Dogs, American Dreams (1980)(Edit)

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—— In the 1980 installation Dark Dogs, American Dreams, at the Holly Solomon Gallery, Anderson collected the recorded dreams of several individuals deliberately portrayed in self-effacing, out-of-focus snapshots. Their voices narrating in the first person produced the effect of thoughts from the crowd. Dark Dogs, American Dreams (1980) [is an installation] room in which a dozen blurry but evocative photographs - a mailman, a waitress, a be-bop lyricist - are mounted on the wall and repeated in miniature on a console in the room's center. Punch the button next to the photo of the mailman, say, and you get his recorded dream, a deadpan recital of a nightmare filled with sly humor. (Click to enlarge)

1974 — exhibition at Artists Space, NYC(Edit)

Laurie Anderson, Don Gummer, Barbara Kruger January 5 – 26, 1974 — [Source] (Claudia Gould, Whirlwind : Conversations with Laurie Anderson, In booklet Artists Space, 25 years, Number 1, Volume 5, Laurie Anderson "Whirlwind", Sept-Nov 1998, page 3)

1974 — AS : IF, performance, Artists Space, NYC(Edit)

PERFORMER SPEAKS OUT OF SYNCH WITH PRE-RECORDED VOICE. — We talked about simultaneously. He said, now — — Tape: We talked about simultaneously. He said, now — think about what you’re saying and just — — think about what you’re saying and just — say it. But I always seemed to be a little — — say it. But I always seemed to be a little — in front of or behind the words. It was — — in front of or behind the words. It was — hard to synchronize. Words would surface, — — hard to synchronize. Words would surface, — the flow would go on, then other words would — — the flow would go on, then other words would — surface. — — surface. — My violin teacher told me the same thing. — — My violin teacher told me the same thing. — Concentrate on the sound, hear it, play it, — — Concentrate on the sound, hear it, play it, — all at once. — — all at once.

(In booklet Artists Space, 25 years, Number 1, Volume 5, Laurie Anderson "Whirlwind", Sept-Nov 1998, page 2)

As If, A performance by Laurie Anderson, April 25, 1974 - Exhibition PersonA, organized by Edit DeAk, Artists Space, NYC

Sketches for As : If performance Re-enactment of the As : If performance

Clear plastic tubing Glass of Water Bauhaus bath mat from Hotel Bauhaus Violin and bow Pine box covered with white sheet Microphone Bronzed baby shoes on white marble slab The gallery is dark except for one area - against a wall - lit with a spotlight. Performer slides in, wearing ice skates (their blades frozen into blocks of ice), white clothes, and a paper - thin sponge around the neck. As performer talks, slides of words are projected on the wall behind. This continues throughout. Each slide is a set of two words separated (or connected) by a colon. I first performed as Artists Space in 1974, a few months after my exhibition. In the performance, called As : If, I wore all white. The dress functioned as a kind of film screen, upon which images were projected. In early performances like that one, I was interested in the use of one basic form — in As : If it was an arc. Most of the basic shapes are derived from forms near where I live. […] On the evening I performed As : If, I was nervous about whether the microphone I had strapped under my right underarm with an improvised mike-clip would fall out. It really looked ridiculous but I gave it a try. I wanted to have my hands free to do other things. This was before reliable remote wireless microphones. At that time, I did a multimedia show, which meant I used slide projectors, Super-8 film, big cables, and microphones strapped with a belt to my chest. I wasn’t that nervous at Artists Space, probably because I’d done so much public performing when I was younger. As a kid, I used to perform in front of people for the Talented Teens, USA group. I was a dorky American teenager from Illinois, but here I was doing shows for people like the mayor of Brighton, England, or for U.S. sailors on a ship in Nice, France. I would give chalk talks which meant I’d draw really fast on huge pieces of paper on a specific topic, such as American life. Because I was at cartoons, I would ask someone from the audience to come up and I would do caricatures of them while we talked. That was the entertainment - and it was really fun. So, during the Artists Space show in 1974, I felt more vulnerable than nervous. I kept asking myself, why am I saying all these things about my life and my grandmother ! It was a very unusual thing to do then. There was no such thing as autobiographical art, which is what it was called a few years later. —(Laurie Anderson, Whirlwind, conversations with Laurie Anderson by Claudia Gould)

(Claudia Gould, Whirlwind : Conversations with Laurie Anderson, In booklet Artists Space, 25 years, Number 1, Volume 5, Laurie Anderson "Whirlwind", Sept-Nov 1998, page 3)

1974 — Dearreader (How to Turn a Book Into a Movie)(Edit)

In Dearreader (1975), Laurie Anderson showed a series of photographs coupled with texts at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York. — Dearreader, a film from 1975-82, uses the conventions of 1940s film noir to comment on the antiquated but still pervasive sexual stereotypes of the mass media. Anderson begins Dearreader with a portrayal of a love-scene in the style of a ’40s movie, followed by a series of intentionnaly cliched vignettes. : the coupe embrace, a clock chimes, nine pages from a monthly calendar fall to the floor showing the passing of time, a baby cries. In this film-performance of 1974, Laurie Anderson referred to not one but three of here favorite storytellers — eighthteenth-century author Laurence Sterne (to whom the film is dedicated), and Herman Melville, for the manner in which he talked directly to his readers. Anderson called this work a « performance film » or a « talking film », referring to the fact that she performed live on her violin at the beginning and end of the screening. See also : — Songs & Stories for the Insomniac (see below 1974-1975)

Dearreader, Black and white video tape with sound from the super-8 film 23 minutes Dearreader [a film/talk] (1974) — How to turn a book into a movie. Dedicated to Lawrence Sterne —, a film directed by Laurie Anderson and Bob George featuring Geraldine Pontius, was shot in one room and involves nine autobiographical stories read in a voiceover by a female narrator. During the presentation of the film, Anderson plays her violin as a live soundtrack and uses her own voice to speak out loud the dialogue of the film. Voice is both a mediatized representation (the instrumental soundtrack) severed from its source (the film), a representational extension (musical sound) that emerges from the actions of an identified source (the violin playing) and a real albeit amplified production (dialogue) that emerges from an identified source (Anderson’s corporeal body) but does not necessarily correspond with the visual display of the filmic projection. — (In Johanna Frank (University of Windsor), Exposed Ventriloquism: Performance, Voice, and the Rupture of the Visible, Ann Arbor, MI: MPublishing, University of Michigan Library, vol. 19, Fall 2005-Spring 2006, Issue title: Bodies: Physical and Abstract)

1974 — In the Nick of Time(Edit)

— — — A performance at The Clocktower, NYC, 1974)

1974 — Self-Playing Violin(Edit)

Self-Playing Violin. 1974. Modified violin with built-in speaker and amplifier (sound). 31 min.

(version française ci-dessous : 1974 - How to Yodel) Modified violin with built-in speaker (with internal audio speaker). As early as 1975 in Duets on Ice [see below], a piece in which Anderson performed on the Self-Playing Violin, a violin with a cassette player installed in its body that accompanies her playing, the violin has been integral to her performances. Over the years she developed many violins : — self-playing violin (1974), — viophonograph (1975-1976) (with partnership with audio engineer Bob Bielecki) (a violin mounted on a record turntable that moves the bow), — (See Part 3 - 1975-1976) — tape bow violin (1977) (which she plays by passing a prerecorded audio tape, strung across a bow, over a tape player’s audio heads, which are mounted in place of the violin strings), — (See Part 4 - 1977-1978) — neon violin (1982), — digital violin (1985). — 1978 - Song for Self-Playing Violin, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati — 1978 - Song for Self-Playing Violin-2, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Conn. Audio document : in cd The Record Of The Time (Sound In The Work Of Laurie Anderson), Catalog of an exhibition held at the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon (France), Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf (Germany), Padiglione d'arte contemporanea in Milan (Italy) and other venues in 2002-2003, with a 2-minute recording of the Self-Playing Violin recorded 1974.

Self Playing Violin (recorded 1974)

from the CD The Record of the Time (Musée D'art Contemporain De Lyon ‎– ISBN 2-096461-57-1), 2002
Catalog of an exhibition held at the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon (France), Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf (Germany), Padiglione d'arte contemporanea in Milan (Italy) and other venues in 2002-2003.

(In Laurie Anderson "Whirlwind", Sept-Nov 1998, Artists Space programme)

1974 — How to Yodel(Edit)

— — Nov. 30, 1974 — Soup & Tart, organised by Jean Dupuy, The Kitchen, New York

Laurie Anderson performing How to Yodel in Soup and Tart, The Kitchen, New York, 1974 - Photo by Kathy Landman.

Laurie Anderson performing How to Yodel in Soup and Tart, The Kitchen, New York, 1974 - Photo by Peter Moore. — — — — I’m afraid my memory of Soup & Tart is a little bit foggy… but I know it was the first time I used the Self-Playing Violin. This is a violin with a small speaker inside - and the speaker wire runs to a cassette deck. Half of a violin duet was in tape (coming out of the F holes of the instrument) and the other half was plying simultaneously live. There were words to the song but I don’t remember exactly what they were. Soup & Tart was right after my loft on Second St. had been broken into ; I’d just spent the summer hitchhiking to the North Pole and came back to find a huge hole chopped through the concrete wall of my loft. All my films had been burned - books and clothes ripped up, windows broken, and magic marker messages three feet high on all the walls. This was when I really started camping out - wandering around New York, staying at friends’ places. I remember the camouflage song had something to do with the way I felt to be your own walking house. — (Laurie Anderson, In Jean Dupuy, Collective Consciousness, Art Performances in the Seventies, Edited by Jean Dupuy, Performing Arts Journal Publications, New York, 1980, p.154) Laurie Anderson performing How to Yodel in Soup and Tart, The Kitchen, New York, 1974, In catalog Jean Dupuy, À la Bonne Heure, Semiose éditions / Villa Tamaris Centre d'Art / Villa Arson Nice, 2008. Download a large picture

— — — Je crains que mes souvenirs de Soup & Tart ne soient un peu vagues… Mais je sais que c’était la première fois que j’utilisais le Self-Playing Violin. Il s’agit d’un violon dans lequel est placée une petite enceinte - l’enceinte est reliée à un magnétophone à cassettes. La moitié du duo de violon est sur cassette (diffusée par les ouïes de l’instrument) et l’autre moitié est jouée simultanément en direct. La chanson avait des paroles mais je ne m’en souviens pas exactement. Soup & Tart a eu lieu juste après le cambriolage de mon loft de Second Street ; je venais de passer l’été à faire du stop jusqu’au Pôle Nord et quand j’étais rentrée, j’avais découvert un énorme trou creusé dans le mur en béton de mon loft. Tous mes films avaient été brûlés - mes livres et mes vêtements étaient déchirés, les fenêtres cassées, des messages d’un mètre barbouillés au feutre sur mes murs. C’est à ce moment-là que j’ai vraiment commencé à faire du camping - j’errais dans New York, je dormais chez des amis. Je me rappelle que cette chanson, sur le thème du camouflage, était en rapport avec ce qu’on ressent, quand on est sa propre maison ambulante. — (Laurie Anderson, In Jean Dupuy catalogue À la Bonne Heure, Semiose éditions / Villa Tamaris Centre d'Art / Villa Arson Nice, 2008, p. 43) — — — — Comme Jean Dupuy habite dans un grand loft, suite à son arrivée de France en 1967 il invite des artistes, des amis, à faire d'autres propositions. L'idée de performances collectives est née. Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Laurie Anderson, Claes Oldenburg, Charlemagne Palestine, Georges Maciunas, Carolee Schneemann, Joan Jonas, Philip Glass, Olga Adorno, Gordon Matta-Clark, Richard Serra,... vont enchaîner de courtes actions régulées par la durée et parfois par un dispositif imposé (Whitney Museum, Judson Church). À la Kitchen, il organise la soirée Soup and Tart où 40 artistes font une petite pièce n'excédant pas 2 mns.

Laurie Anderson about How to Yodel, In Jean Dupuy, Collective Consciousness, Art Performances in the Seventies, Edited by Jean Dupuy, Performing Arts Journal Publications, New York, 1980, p.154

1974-75 — Duets on Ice(Edit)

— — 1974 — Five NYC Street locations, New York

— — 1975 — Genoa (Gênes), Italy (Organizzazione Ida Gianelli / Samangallery)

New York, 1974

— Dans Duets on Ice, œuvre/performance qu'elle réalise dans les rues bruyantes de New York, puis l'année suivante dans les ruelles étroites de Gênes, chaussant des patins à glace pris dans des blocs de glace, elle joue seule en duo avec un violon modifié qu'elle décrit comme un « faux ventriloque » : la musique qui en sort est à la fois jouée par son jeu sur les cordes avec l'archet et par un enregistrement diffusé à l'intérieur de son violon via un haut-parleur qui y est ajusté. Juchée sur des patins préalablement immobilisés dans un bloc de glace et, lorsque celle-ci est complètement fondue, elle perd l’équilibre et le morceau est terminé : c'est ainsi qu'elle gère la durée de la performance. La performance prend fin lorsque la glace est fondue. Tout en jouant avec son violon, elle parle, elle parle entre les chansons, parle de l'acte de patiner, de l'acte de jouer du violon, par de l'équilibre entre les deux actions, évoque le souvenir de canards cancanant palmes figées dans la glace et secouant incessamment leurs ailes plus ou moins gelées, etc. — (selon des extraits de Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux, L'Acte pour l'Art, Éd. Al Dante, 2004) — — — — In this performance Anderson played the Self-Playing Violin in various outdoor locations at four different locations on sidewalks, in New York. Standing on ice skates, she played a violin that contained a buit-in speaker (the Self-Playing Violin). The pre-recorded music is a loop without a beginning or an end ; wired to a hidden tape recorder, the violin could produce pre-recorded sound and melodies as well as live music. Different performances featured cowboy songs and classical pieces by other performers who became unknowing collaborators. In this way, Anderson was able to perform a duet with herself. So she wore a pair of ice skates with their blades frozen and embedded into blocks of ice, so that when the ice melted the concert was over. In Interview (August 1998), Laurie Anderson described this approach: “I always light performances so I can see people really well in the audience. That’s how I learn what to cut out, what to change.” As she sawed away, she explained to her audience the parallels in balance between skating and fiddling. More than a simple Dada-type escapade, Duets on Ice revealed a number of central features in Anderson’s ethos - notably a deep concern with performance time and objects. Possibly influenced by her storytelling and teaching experiences, Anderson tries to keep the length of her performances within set limits, usually less than 60 or 75 minutes. In Duets on Ice, the melting of the ice (when she lost her balance) regulated the performance time in an obvious, graphic fashion. — {small}(Mel Gordon, In Judith Tick, Paul Beaudoin, Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 737) — — — — "Pre-recorded violin pieces were played through a speaker inside the violin. The violin was simultaneously played live. The pre-recorded piece was a loop, it didn’t have a beginning or an end. I needed a timing mechanism, a way to express duration. So I wore a pair of ice skates with their blades frozen into blocks of ice so that when the ice melted and I lost my balance the concert was over. Sometimes in Genoa I would stop playing for a moment and make a dedication in my beginner’s Italian to the people who were standing around and listening. I said that I was playing these songs in memory of my grandmother because on the day she died I walked out onto a frozen lake ; there were a lot of ducks honking and flapping their wings. I got very close to them and they didn’t fly away. Then I saw that they couldn’t move because their feet had been frozen into the new layer of ice. One man who heard me tell this story was explaining to newcomers, “She’s playing this music because once she and her grandmother were frozen together in a lake.”" — (Laurie Anderson)

Genoa / Gênes / Genova, Italy, 1975 - Photos by Bob Bielecki. Laurie Anderson performs on ice as part of the Adelaide Festival 2013. Photo by Catherine Zengerer.

1974-1975 — Songs & Stories for the Insomniac(Edit)

— — (1974 — Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago ?)
— — 1975 — Artists Space, NYC
— — 1975 — (Songs and Stories for the Insomniac... Continued), Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

Next Part 3 : 1975-1976(Edit)

Pages : — — [The Handphone Table (1978)] — [Part 1 : 1971-1972] — [Part 2 : 1973-1974] — [Part 3 : 1975-1976] — [Part 4 : 1977-1978] — [Part 5 : 1979] —

Page : — — [Introduction (in French)]