Over the course of her 25-year career, performance artist Laurie Anderson often has relied on technology to create her complex and inventive audio-visual one-woman shows. So it’s a bit surprising that in her latest performance, “The Speed of Darkness,” Anderson uses little more than keyboards, violin and her own voice as she uneasily contemplates how technology dominates contemporary life.
“I’ve had that contradiction since I started using it,” Anderson, 50, explains from New York City. As if to illustrate her point, she’s then interrupted by a call on a second phone.
“Someone wanting to do a survey,” she reports a moment later. “See, that’s part of it. It’s subversive and demanding. It seems to me (that) it’s a threat.
“People really feel under a lot of pressure to get more stuff,” she elaborates. “A lot of people I know are going broke. . . . If there’s one thing in America we’re afraid of, it’s falling behind.” As frantic as people have become to keep up with the explosions of new technologies, Anderson says, “I don’t know how it’s improving people’s lives.”
“The Speed of Darkness,” which she’ll perform this weekend at Elgin Community College and the College of DuPage, is her reaction to this phenomenon. The performances are a sort of homecoming for Anderson, who grew up in Glen Ellyn and attended Glenbard West High School. She’ll be visiting her alma mater for the first time since her 1965 graduation to talk with students there.
Although she calls the performance “my unplugged show,” she immediately adds, “It’s about 50 plugs, to tell you the truth.” She’ll use some foot pedals and digital sound equipment in addition to her voice and violin.
Still, Anderson notes, her performance uses “no sets, no pictures. It’s all mental pictures.”
The point, Anderson says is “Use (technology) well. It’s just another tool, you know. The hype that surrounds it is what bothers me.”
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Laurie Anderson performs “The Speed of Darkness” at 8 p.m. Friday at Elgin Community College, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin (847-622-0300), and 8 p.m. Saturday at College of DuPage, 425 22nd St., Glen Ellyn (630-942-4000).
