fbpx Laurie Anderson, Notebook | CIRCA 20:23

Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson, Notebook

6 - 30 April, CIRCA 20:23

The Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Arts (CIRCA) presents Notebook – a new series of 25 animated pages by groundbreaking multimedia artist, performer, musician and writer, Laurie Anderson. Launching on the full moon (6 – 30 April), Notebook will debut a different video work every evening throughout April at 20:23 on London’s Piccadilly Lights and broadcast across a global network of digital screens in Berlin, Milan, Seoul and Tokyo. 

Highlighting her unique blend of the personal, the poetic and the political, Anderson created Notebook in response to the CIRCA 20:23 manifesto: ‘Hope: The Art of Reading What Is Not Yet Written’. Drawing on CIRCA’s distinctive monthly programme, the exhibition will unravel over 25 days as an ongoing narrative of words, drawings and stories. Featuring over 135 chalk-drawings from the artist’s personal notebook, each photographed and edited in stop-motion, Anderson will guide members of the public on an intimate and personal journey.

Laurie Anderson, comments

While I can’t define hope in a few words, people using their own imaginations in the freest way possible makes me feel hopeful.

As part of the #CIRCAECONOMY commitment to invest in the future of art and culture, CIRCA invited curator and author, Vittoria de Franchis, to write this month’s CIRCA Essay in response to Notebook

‘Laurie Anderson’s proposal for CIRCA 20:23, “Notebook”, consists of 25 animations composed of 135 drawings from her notebook. When I ask her what they are about, she answers: “I prefer not to turn them into language or explicate. The world is already overexplained. Think of them outside of context. Thought balloons. Appearing out of nowhere.” It is no coincidence that Anderson’s piece inaugurates on April’s full moon day. Raising our gaze to look at the sky has become an archaeological gesture, something we romantically associate with menhirs and ancient discoveries. Cities don’t have a sky; the lights are too bright, and pollution veils the firmament. We sometimes have the sensation that nothing is beyond skyscrapers, dangerously becoming condensed cores of our destinies.’

Read the full CIRCA Essay here.

APRIL PROGRAMME
Notebook by Laurie Anderson
6 – 30 April, CIRCA 20:23

20:23 BST ➳ London, Piccadilly Lights
20:23 CET ➳ Berlin, Limes, Kurfürstendamm
20:23 CET ➳ Milan, Cadorna Square, EssilorLuxottica
20:23 KST ➳ Seoul, COEX K-Pop Square
Hourly JST ➳ Tokyo, Shibuya Crossing

CIRCA MAP OF GLOBAL SCREENINGS

Biography

Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson (born June 5, 1947, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, USA) is an American avant-garde performance artist and composer and filmmaker.
Although she played the violin from childhood, she received her formal training in the visual arts. Her work has incorporated graphics, lighting, sculpture, mime, slides, film, speech, music and many electronics, some of her own design. By 1976, her performances were featured prominently in museums and concert venues across Europe and North America. In 1981, Anderson’s single “O Superman” reached number two on the British pop charts. Until then music had been only one of the media employed in her work. Anderson has achieved greater visibility than most composers of her generation, her unexpected crossover into the popular domain brought her a degree of fame usually unavailable to avant-garde artists.