Laurie Anderson | |
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Anderson in the 1980s
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Background information | |
Birth name | Laura Phillips Anderson |
Born |
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, U.S. |
June 5, 1947
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | Musician, performance artist |
Instruments | Violin, keyboards, percussion, vocals |
Years active | 1975–present |
Labels | Warner Bros., Nonesuch/Elektra |
Associated acts | Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, John Zorn, Nile Rodgers, Colin Stetson, Adrian Belew, David Van Tieghem, Janice Pendarvis, Philip Glass |
Website | laurieanderson |
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, making particular use of language, technology, and visual imagery. She became widely more known outside the art world in 1981 when her single "O Superman" reached number two on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.
Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she developed a talking stick, a six-foot (1.8 m) long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate sounds.
Anderson started dating Lou Reed in 1992, and was married to him from 2008 until his death in 2013.
Anderson was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, on June 5, 1947, the daughter of Mary Louise (née Rowland) and Arthur T. Anderson. She graduated from Glenbard West High School. She attended Mills College in California, and eventually graduated from Barnard College magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, studying art history. In 1972, she obtained an MFA in sculpture from Columbia University. Her first performance-art piece—a symphony played on automobile horns—was performed in 1969. In 1970, she drew the underground comix Baloney Moccasins, which was published by George DiCaprio. In the early 1970s, she worked as an art instructor, as an art critic for magazines such as Artforum, and illustrated children's books—the first of which was titled The Package, a mystery story in pictures alone.