Anderson, Laurie (1947– )

US composer and performance artist. She trained as a violinist and minimalist painter and in 1974 began making her own instruments, including a violin with an internal speaker. She has appeared widely in Europe and the USA, notably in multi-media, cyber-punk shows which employ a voice-activated synthesizer; contact microphones have turned her body into a percussion set.

In 1973 she staged the 12-hour audio-visual show The Life and Times of Josef Stalin at Brooklyn Academy, USA. Her show Songs and Stories from Moby Dick premiered in Dallas, Texas, in April 1999 and went to the Barbican Arts Centre, London, England, in May 2000.

Works Americans on the Move (1979, developed into United States Live, 1983); New York Social Life; Time to Go (portraying a museum attendant at closing time); Empty Places (1989); the autobiographical Stories from the Nerve Bible (1993); album Bright Red (1994).