Virtual Reality Experiences
There is plenty to see in the Laurie Anderson exhibition without a reservation, however, if you would like to reserve a 15 minute virtual reality slot for either ALOFT or CHALKROOM, please reserve below. Note: you must make separate reservations for ALOFT and CHALKROOM. Each reservation is for one individual.
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Laurie Anderson: All The Things I Lost in the Flood
Directly following the release of her collection of essays, All the Things I Lost in the Flood, Laurie Anderson continues to explore the power and perils of language and storytelling in a presentation that mines the personal archive of her forty-year body of work.
More Information and Tickets
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Laurie Anderson is an 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, visual imagery and electronic music. All of these elements are still a vital part of her artistic output.
Laurie Anderson is first and foremost a renowned storyteller. In every medium from painting to monologue, the artist is able to construct evocative narratives that transport viewers to a visual realm. This exhibition at Guild Hall is divided into three components that highlight various media that Anderson works in, allowing the visitor to experience the genius of this unique artist. The three components are video performance, drawings, and virtual reality.
Perhaps best known for her performance art in which she uses films and projections in her stage shows, which display her immense talent of combining the spoken word, visuals, music and sounds to create an energy infused experience. She has done everything from short Public Service Announcements on issues that she deems important or comical to her most recent directorial work in Heart of A Dog, 2015. Anderson has been the writer, performer, and director of a vast body of work some of which will be available for the visitor to immerse themselves: Heart of a Dog, Carmen, What You Mean We? Hidden Inside Mountains, Home of the Brave and Six PSA’s.
In 2011, the death of Laurie Anderson’s dog, Lolabelle, triggered a series of works, including Lolabelle in the Bardo. A practicing Buddhist, Anderson imagined her dog in the Bardo— a place in which, according to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, all living things must spend 49 days in preparation for reincarnation. Anderson’s large-scale, 120 x 168 inches, charcoal drawings depict Lolabelle’s journey. The works are impressive in scale and emotion. There is a frenetic energy to the works that invites the viewer to enter this other-worldly space.
Anderson’s use of virtual reality takes her storytelling to the next level, creating a total aural and visual atmosphere that enables participants to have the sensation of flying, traveling through solid surfaces, or entering an imaginary space or scenario. This medium is new for the artist. Anderson has worked with Hsin-Chien Huang, her Virtual Reality collaborator. Huang is a new media creator who works in art, design, engineering and digital entertainment. His career explores the cutting edge technologies in art, literature, design, and stage performance. Together they are generating an innovative approach to public engagement with Anderson’s artistic vision transformed to this new media.
In Chalkroom the participant flies through an enormous structure made of words, drawings and stories. Once you enter you are free to roam and fly. Words sail through the air as emails. They fall into dust. They form and reform. Chalkroom was the Winner of the Best Virtual Reality Experience at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. A second Virtual Reality piece titled Aloft gives the participant the sensation of being in an airplane that comes apart. You find yourself suspended in air with all the plane components floating around you as you enter blue abys.
Laurie Anderson continues to write, perform and present her artistic vision for all to enjoy.
Anderson was the recipient of the 2011 Guild Hall Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts and reside in New York City and East Hampton.
Curated by Christina Strassfield.
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Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned and daring creative pioneers. Best known for her multimedia presentations, innovative use of technology and first-person style, she is a writer, director, visual artist and vocalist who has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music.
Her recording career, launched by “O Superman” in 1981, includes many records released by Warner Records and Nonesuch, among them “Big Science” (1982), the soundtrack to her feature film “Home of the Brave”(1986) “Strange Angels” (1989) “Life on a String” (2001) “Homeland” (2008) the Grammy winning “Landfall” (2018) and the Grammy nominated “Songs from the Bardo” (2019) on Smithsonian Folkways.
Other recordings include numerous works for podcast and radio including the most recent “Party in the Bardo” series for WESU Middletown. She has performed music and toured worldwide with many of her own groups and bands and composed orchestra works “It’s Cold Outside” (1982) and“ Songs for A.E.” for the American Composers Orchestra (2000), the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and in 2019 for the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.
Anderson's live shows range from spoken word works to multi- faceted multimedia stage performances such as “United States Parts 1-4” (1982) “Stories from the Nerve Bible” (1992) “Songs and Stories for Moby Dick” (1999) “Delusion” (2010) and “Language of the Future” (2017). Anderson continues to collaborate with Christian McBride, Brian Eno and Philip Glass as well as improvising with Bill Laswell and John Zorn.
In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 solo performance “The End of the Moon”, the second in a series of three “story” performances along with “Happiness” (2001) and “Dirtday” (2012) all of which toured extensively internationally.
Anderson has published eight books. Her most recent release - “All The Things I Lost In The Flood” (Rizzoli) – is a series of essays about pictures, language and codes. She is currently writing and compiling “The Art of the Straight Line” a series of essays and interviews about tai chi in the work of her late husband Lou Reed who she lived with and collaborated with for twenty-one years.
Anderson’s visual work has been presented in museums around the world. Major audio-visual installations include “The Record of the Time- Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson” (2003), World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan and “Habeas Corpus” (2015) a collaboration with Guantanamo detainee Mohammed el Gharani at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City for which she was awarded, for the second time, Yoko Ono’s “Courage Award for the Arts”.
Anderson’s films include numerous music videos and installation works as well as “Carmen” (1992), the high definition “Hidden Inside Mountains” (2005) and Arte-commissioned “Heart of a Dog” (2015) which was chosen as an official selection of the 2015 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.
Her series of paintings have been exhibited widely. She has been an artist in residence at many places among them Princeton Atelier (2008 and 2019) and at EMPAC in Troy, New York from (2012-2015) as Distinguished Artist in Residence. She has long term exhibition at Mass MoCA. Her digital and VR collaborations with Hsin-Chien Huang have won awards at both the Venice Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival.
The recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and awards among them Guggenheim Fellowship (1982) and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2007) she continues to experiment with many different forms and contexts for her work.
As an activist Anderson has participated in many groups including Women’s Action Coalition and Occupy Art. As a Buddhist she is an active She lives and works in New York and Springs Long Island.
