The artist's freedom

Last night I saw Mirkem. It's funny when you start dreaming of your own imagional creations and they become suddenly more realistic than you expect - at least as realistic as dreams can get. I could blame the fact of not having enough sleep recently. Grading until 3:30am yesterday (on a Saturday evening!!!).. Meeting Mirkem was nice though and probably something like a small escape into a more innocent and childish world. She looked quite different than I had imagined her when writing about her. However, I think Laurie Anderson made me think about Mirkem again and so I mainly should blame her. I was at her performance at USC yesterday (ya I started grading quite late ;) and which was more something like a person to person conversation than a performance, but even more powerful. She talked about two recent art pieces she was working on - within places as diverse as they can get - NASA and a japanese garden. Embraced by her words and surrounded by the darkness of the auditorium it was suddenly just me and her. Empowering her "talk" as a "performance" for each single one of us she took us on a journey. The journey into her world, which gradually became more and more my own. Floating through abstract natural landscapes, powerful machines and escaping to a place where art is as simple as it is: just Laurie, just me, just you. "Why are you changing us Laurie", the audience asked. "I would never want to change you. I would never want to make somebody a better human being, a better member of society,... because there is nothing better for the artist. This is our freedom." And then there was Mirkem. When I finally admitted to myself, that there is not more to me, but this. And I felt a little bit of freedom.. in downtown LA.