Slow down!
That was the message Laurie Anderson gave yesterday in her panel discussion entitled "How do Art and Science Converge?"
"We're here to have a very, very, very good time. We're not here to get a lot of stuff done," Anderson said.
But Anderson herself won't be slowing down anytime soon. As NASA's first artist-in-residence, she is keeping herself busy.
Speaking about her new position, Anderson said that she is very excited about working with NASA because she sees so many beautiful and fascinating possibilities. From rovers on Mars to a proposed space elevator, the new ideas at NASA inspire her.
But Anderson said she feels a conflict between her excitement for NASA's projects and her own desire to not seem "too patriotic."
"I hesitate to be that kind of cheerleader because I am a really dark person anyways," Anderson said.
Anderson does have an idea of what she wants to do in the uncharted waters of NASA as artist-in-residence, but she said that it will not involve a message to President Bush about his latest space plans. She said she hates when people tell her what to do and so, she said, she won't do that to others.
NASA is not her only project though. Anderson is currently working with a garden designer in Japan, creating a walk-through "narrative" that will flow through the garden. This work in Japan has influenced her beliefs in slowing down and in Zen ideals. She said she is tired of philosophers who merely ask, "Where did we come from?"
"I know that we will never find the answer," Anderson said.
Anderson thinks that people focus too much on the future and the past and finds Buddhism's theory of being in the moment "a much more interesting place to be."
"Everything is kind of a race," Anderson said of the current world.
Even amidst a world filled with new projects and hectic lifestyles, Anderson is trying to stick to her ideals of slowing down. A current personal project of hers is a series of trans-continental walks that help her relax.
"I missed the sense of destination," she said.
Anderson's work has been featured at the Guggenheim Museum in SoHo, New York, and extensively in Europe, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. She has also released seven albums, including one song "O, Superman" that reached number two on the British pop charts.
She graduated from Barnard College in 1969 and did graduate study in sculpture at Columbia University. She now lives in Manhattan.