four-thirty-three

I also think that women are excellent social critics, basically because we have nothing to lose, anyway. It’s like we’re not in a position of power, so we don’t risk a lot by being critical of it. [Laurie Anderson, 1983]

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.”  I’m posting about Laurie Anderson, because of the innovative ways in which she has used and commented on technology (and because her work intersects with my interests: music, art, postmodernity, interdisciplinarity).

Possibly the most famous song by Laurie Anderson is “O Superman,” which inexplicably was a hit single in the UK in 1981.  Her performance is entirely mediated by technology as her voice is processed through a vocoder, and the lyrics are a commentary on American militarism (itself made possible by technological innovation).

Rather than write more about the song myself, I’ll refer folks to the wikipedia page linked above, this excellent essay by musicologist Susan McClary in which she writes about “O Superman” at length, and a blog post by composer Roger Bourland (which is where the score image I posted above comes from; you can also find lyrics at that site).

Because the embedded version of the video breaks my layout, you’ll have to go here to listen.  At 8+ minutes long “O Superman” is not your typical pop song, but it’s an amazing piece of music.

This entry was posted Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 5:33 am and is filed under music, video. Both comments and pings are currently closed.