L
aurie anderson is nothing if not a mercurial propo-
sition. In her multiplecareers, she has been a musician,
a visual artist, a filmmaker (most recently in her 2015
essay film Heart of a Dog), a raconteur, an exponent
of Buddhist practice, and an organizer of concerts for
dogs. Perhaps what her work essentially consists of is
simply wondering, on an enviably regular and fertile basis, “What
if...?” and then working out the best—and often the most techno-
logically resonant—method for pursuing that possibility further.
Anderson boldly goes, and then some, in her current explo-
rations of virtual reality, through a trilogy of works made in col-
laboration with Taiwanese new-media artist Hsin-Chien Huang.
Formerly shown separately in various festival and gallery contexts
including the Venice Film Festival, their three pieces featured in
Cannes this year under the collective title Go Where You Look!
Falling Off Snow Mountainas a sidebar to the Directors’ Fortnight
selection (which screened Anderson’s concert feature Home of theBravein 1987). Experiencing the show—installed at the Suquet
des Art(iste)s, an arts center built in a former morgue—offered a
vivid reminder of some of the qualities that make VR so unlike
cinema. Above all, there’s the sense of being alone in an imaginary
space that you seem to inhabit physically—a space not bounded
by the parameters of a screen, and whose rules of engagement
you only start to learn once you abandon yourself to it.
All three works, each lasting 15 minutes and experienced sit-
ting on a swivel chair, simulate the feel of flight. In Aloft, you’re
the sole passenger on a plane that disintegrates around you, leav-
ing you suspended while objects float toward you that you can
grab with your hands (this is the only piece that doesn’t require
you to use handsets). Among them: a rock, a typewriter, a copy
of Crime and Punishment. Strange things happen too when you
look at the digital image of your hands, which move like your
own, but sprout horse hooves or burst into spots.
The more elaborately trippy To the Moon(a digital-ageINSIDE STORIES Redefining the boundaries of the new-media age
24 | FILMCOMMENT|July-August 2019Space Odyssey
At Cannes, Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang sent us flying with their bewildering virtual-reality trio
BY JONATHAN ROMNEY
Above: Chalkroom
Laurie AndersonHsin-Chien Huang
Opposite page:
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