Oral history interview with Laurie Anderson, 2015

Biographical Note

Laurie Anderson was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She is an experimental artist, musician, composer, film director, instrumentalist, and a pioneer in the field of electronic music. She was also the wife of musician Lou Reed

Scope and Contents

Laurie Anderson discusses her influences from childhood through adolescence and early adulthood. She analyzes the nature of memory. She describes the environment of New York in the 1970s as having elements of earlier hippie notions of communality, ease, and languor. She also describes personalities she knew in New York's 1970s art scene. She discusses the influence of Buddhism and Vipassana sessions. She shares about her collaboration with Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg on the 1983 performance art piece Set + Reset. She describes her relationship with Rauschenberg including socializing at parties, artistic collaborations, and, posthumously, through his foundation's Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, FL. She describes her 2015 residency at Captiva and its impact on compositions. She also discusses her 2015 film Heart of a Dog

Subjects

• Anderson, Laurie, 1947---Interviews.
• Artists--New York (State)--New York--20th century.
• Avant-garde (Music)
• Brown, Trisha, 1936-2017.
• Captiva Island (Fla.)
• Composers--Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Nicifero, Alessandra, 1968-, interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, 2016