Laurie Anderson
All the things I lost in the flood

Hi, this is Laurie Anderson and I’m an artist from New York here in Madrid to do a lot of projects.

I’m so happy to be here. It’s like New York. It’s very… Watch what’s going on in the streets, you can see a lot of action and a lot of people. They’re not hiding in their houses or in their cars. They’re out in the street. I feel very at home here in Madrid. It reminds me of New York.

I haven’t spent too much time remembering each thing, I have to say. It was a little bit of a relief, frankly, when they were washed away. I didn’t have to take care of them anymore. I didn’t have to look at them. I didn’t have to ensure them. You know. And I’ve never been so interested in things. I, of course, love making things, I’m an artist, but I’m not… For example, I just did a project with Anselm Kiefer. He asked me to trade work and I said: “I’m not a collector”. I mean, I love Anselm Kiefer paintings, everything he makes. So I made a table for him, where you listen through your bones, and we put it in his place in the south of France, but I think what I’m going to ask from him for a trade is just to paint with him for a few days. That’s what I would really like to do, just see what is like to make things around him.

I’m a Buddhist, so I believe that nothing is static and everything changes and you cannot stop that flow. And that is very interesting, to try to ride on it, you know? And I appreciate the fact that it’s ever shifting.

I’m not inventing new forms. I use forms that were already there and just give them new uses. I’m more interested in how I use them rather than in making new ones for aesthetic perception. That puts me not trying to move into the future, but just sort of look at how things can work in a different way now.

I work in art forms that are about, really about the present. That’s a really big responsibility because you don’t want to be too obvious, and you don’t want to be too obscure. You have to make a balance people understand.

They were very in. It was a very enthusiastic shout, I have to say. You never know if people are going to be shy or whatever, but people were like… yes! It was wonderful. It was a joyous sound. Because I think it’s so important to express how you feel and sometimes that feeling is a scream, you know? Or a shout, so…

Everyone has the power of their voice now. It’s a kind of nightmare for some people because everyone is a critic. It’s egalitarian and interesting, but also brings out a certain kind of creature, who sometimes has a lot of rage. Giving the microphone to everybody… You better be ready for what they’re going to say cause it might just be rage. And I’m not objecting to expressing rage. I think many people have a very, very good idea, I mean, good reason to have rage. They’re disenfranchised and getting more so, getting more sidelined by what’s happening in the world technologically. So they not longer have jobs and they no longer have a hope of having something to do. And I think that people who are designing their world know that very well and it’s quite poisonous what’s going on. I think it’s a very, very good idea to have discussions about this and I think museums and cultural institutions play a big part in that.