Laudatio and Keynote
Ars Electronica honors internationally renowned artist Laurie Anderson (US) as the 2022 “Visionary Pioneer of Media Art”.
Anderson’s extensive body of work often features political content, engages with societal issues and is characterized by a high degree of socio-political commitment.
Since the 1980ies Anderson has been a compelling storyteller, influential and style-defining icon of avant-garde media art who enthralls audiences with her unusual ability to traverse and combine various genres.
Following an introduction by Artistic Director of Ars Electronica Gerfried Stocker, the composer, percussionist and festival director Charles Amirkhanian will speak on his personal connection to Laurie Anderson, as well as her inspiring career from 1973 to the present.
During her Keynote, Anderson will give audiences first hand insight into her life and work as an artist, performer, composer and writer, as well as groundbreaking leader in the use of technology in the arts.
Introduction by Ars Electronica
Gerfried Stocker (AT)
Speakers:
Laurie Anderson (US)
Charles Amirkhanian (US)
Biographies
Laurie Anderson (US) is a style-defining icon of avant-garde media art and electroacoustic music. The musician, composer, filmmaker, author and media artist crosses and combines different genres. She established herself as a performance artist from the 1970s onwards. In 1981/82 she became internationally famous with the single O Superman and the album Big Science. This year she was awarded as “Visionary Pioneer of Media Art 2022″. 
Charles Amirkhanian (US): Composer, sound poet, and producer for radio, concerts, and recordings, was responsible for the first commercial LP release of then-emerging composer Laurie Anderson in 1977. As Music Director of KPFA-FM Radio in Berkeley (1969-1992) and, since 1993, as Artistic Director of Other Minds, a new music organization in San Francisco, he’s played a central role in the encouragement and dissemination of the work of experimental composers and performers. He is widely known for his live and fixed media works utilizing speech elements in rhythmic patterns resembling percussion music. His later music incorporates ambient sounds modified with digital sampling, for which he was commissioned by WDR Köln to create such hörspiel works as ‘Im Frühling’ and ‘Metropolis San Francisco’. His music is available on Starkland, New World, and Other Minds Records.
Gerfried Stocker (AT) is a media artist and an engineer for communication technology and has been artistic director and co-CEO of Ars Electronica since 1995. In 1995/96 he developed the exhibition strategies of the Ars Electronica Center with a small team of artists and technicians and was responsible for the setup and establishment of Ars Electronica’s own R & D facility, the Ars Electronica Futurelab. He has overseen the development of the program for international Ars Electronica exhibitions since 2004, the planning and the revamping of the contents for the Ars Electronica Center, which was enlarged in 2009, since 2005; the expansion of the Ars Electronica Festival since 2015; and the extensive overhaul of Ars Electronica Center’s contents and interior design in 2019. Stocker is a consultant for numerous companies and institutions in the field of creativity and innovation management and is active as a guest lecturer at international conferences and universities. In 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Aalto University, Finland.S+T+ARTS Day is supported by the European Project Repairing the Present which has received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement LC01641664.
