Talk (post)normal: conceptualisations of the future in Laurie Anderson’s work
Talk (post)normal: conceptualisations of the future in Laurie Anderson’s work

Summary/Abstract: To call Laurie Anderson a multimedia artist – as she herself has done on more than one occasion – is to state something so obvious as to be nearly meaningless. Indeed, it is as redundant as to say that her work has persistently concerned the future. Offering universalizing depictions of American postmodernity through the new technologies that were the theme of many of her projects, Anderson has, nevertheless, persistently stressed her attachment to a very traditional art form, that of storytelling. Paradoxically, however, this ancient form implies an interest in the future just as intense as and perhaps in fact even more fundamental than her cutting-edge interactive installations and multimedia performances. Voicing her concern about whether there is indeed any future before humanity, Anderson presented herself in a recent interview as an artist in danger of being radically deprived of her medium, which for a storyteller is, by definition, the future. My paper is a look at the various facets of futures conceptualized by Laurie Anderson over the forty years of her artistic activity, stretching from political fear and anger, through philosophical reflection, to personal considerations of our individual temporality.

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