How do you get a painting inside your head? Music: sure. If it’s any good, it bores right through your skull – like a needle, like a bullet. Earphones nestle right next to your brain. A painting, though? A painting is outside. It’s a thing you look at. You enter it. It doesn’t enter you. How do you get a painting inside your head? Let’s ask another way. How does Laurie Anderson get into your head?
Laurie Anderson shows what was already in there. She makes you wonder: Is she doing this, or am I? And you think: She – well – she didn’t have to shove the painting in there. Everything was already there. There’s rhythm, sure, if you want to hear it. If you want, you can pick out a melody. But there’s no leitmotif. There’s no crescendo, no “grande ligne”. It’s just what was already there. It was all inside your head.
—Benjamin Moser
