Interviewed by Nicholas Zurbrugg
Nicholas Zurbrugg Perhaps I could start with a very general question. What would you say to the suggestion that one might think of you as a multimedia artist? Is that a description that you'd accept? How do you think of yourself as an artist?
Laurie Anderson Oh, I don't think of that first thing. I mean I've used a lot of tools, and I think it's kind of strange to describe yourself by tools, although I suppose painters do-they use a paintbrush. But that hardly says anything about them. Although it might say more than 'multimedia' says about someone, because who doesn't work with multimedia? Often it gets a little a bit blurry, especially in watching the war develop. A lot of artists talk about multimedia the way generals talk about F16 bombers-you know, how efficient it is. They like it because it's so efficient and get very involved in describing their media, and how fast it is. It could be the same description as an artist describing tools. So, I describe myself as a story-teller, really. That seems to work well enough. I was describing it as the oldest artform in the world, and then I was misquoted as saying I worked in the oldest profession in the world. And so I decided I had to revise that.
Nicholas Zurbrugg Presumably one could say that there are other story-tellers who tell stories in a more conventional way?
Laurie Anderson Yes, but it doesn't matter to me. People have told stories in a million kinds of ways. First it was sitting round a fire, with no tape-recorders. But fire's magic, and so is technology. You just hover around something that... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline