Shirin Neshat

by Shirin Neshat

"For the last year I've been on the road with a solo performance. Every night another theater, another hotel room. Gradually my dreams became wild, vivid, more and more relentless. Headless singing squirrels, vast empty spaces, bizarre clatterings and invasions. My own dark and private theater was slowly taking over. I began to draw these dreams literally out of self-defense. I kept the computer drawing tablet next to the bed and tried to capture them in their most raw state. After many months of drawing my dreams I was drawn into the odd language and logic of the images. Often I drew my own head in the foreground. What did that mean? Who's watching who? Often the dreams were alternate versions of the day's events. Sometimes they were heavily charged atmospheres, sensations, emotions. Depictions of bewilderment, ecstasy, weightlessness, abandonment, freedom." "Night Life" is Laurie Anderson's diary of a year of dreams. Its pages re-create each night's mental show as a work of art, employing Anderson's skill in theater, lyrics and narrative to investigate the workings of her mind in the languages of dreams, drawings and text.

152 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2006

Reviews

[Serafina Sands · Rating 5 out of 5]

While on tour in 2005, Anderson started having vivid dreams. She describes them briefly, and draws them using her computer. Extraordinary.