Description

Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Laurie Anderson is interviewed in the radio show Backstage Pass. Anderson discusses her work as a multimedia artist, visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronic vocalist and instrumentalist. Between recordings of hers that are played on the show, Anderson talks about her move to New York and her studies in medicine. Anderson explains how she came to be more interested in drawing than science and moved into art history. She was fired from her position for “too creative teaching” and became a disc jockey. Anderson discusses her 1981 recording “O Superman”. Anderson mentions the flexibility necessary to do her varied work. She discusses both William S. Burroughs (calling him the “Mark Twain of the 20th Century”) and her collaboration with Peter Gabriel on her album Mister Heartbreak.