Laurie Anderson is a performance artist, a wonderful one. She utilizes visual techniques along with music to tell her stories about human beings, and, in particular, American human beings. She also uses many "technical tricks" on stage: harmonizers, repetitions of images, and a tape-bow violin. A very skilled performer.
Opens with music from Anderson's 1979 Cabrillo College Music Festival performance: untitled tape-bow violin performance; "Closed Circuits"; "Born, Never Asked"; and "The Language of the Future". Laurie Anderson talks with Susan Sailow about how shaping time is at the core of her art, her studio, electronics and how performing is just like playing at home to her. They discuss the interaction between visual and aural elements of her art. Anderson talks about using printing presses as rhythm tracks, tape-bow violin, and some of her influences and collaborators. Other recordings heard here include "Born, Never Asked" (studio). "Walk the Dog" (live at Cabrillo); "Is Anybody Home?" (studio); "Ethics is the Esthetics of the Few-Ture" (studio); "Song for Juanita" (studio); "Time to Go (For Diego)" (studio). Tape ends with a repeat of the same Cabrillo College Music Festival performance of "Walk the Dog." Second half of the program starts at 00:44:43 and precedes the first half of the program.