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AMNA NAWAZ: For some 
five decades, artist and 
musician Laurie Anderson

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has been redefining cultural 
boundaries. In a new album,

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she's now exploring the 
story of an earlier woman 
who reached for the heights.

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Senior arts correspondent 
Jeffrey Brown reports for our 
arts and culture series, Canvas.

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JEFFREY BROWN: So this is 
where a lot of stuff happens.

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LAURIE ANDERSON, Artist and 
Musician: It happens. Some 
of the stuff happens here.

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And this is most of the 
audio world. So this is...

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JEFFREY BROWN: Laurie Anderson 
in her downtown New York studio 
altering the sound of her voice.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: This 
is a standard vocoder. 
If you sound different,

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you're a different 
person. So this, you 
can make more symphonic.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Creating 
musical layers with 
her electronic viola.

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For some 50 years, 
she's been a pioneer of 
storytelling, mixing music,

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art, theater and film, a 
happily uncategorizable 
artist of our time.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: There are 
ways of making things that

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it doesn't matter what 
the material is in a way. 
If I'm playing a violin, 
or if I'm painting, I'm

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using the same arm. I'm asking 
myself the exact same questions. 
Is it bright enough? Is it crazy

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enough? Is it sweet enough, 
beautiful enough? Is it 
complicated enough? Is 
it communicating enough?

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JEFFREY BROWN: Now she's 
turned her attention to 
a fascinating pioneer of 
another time and talent.

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WOMAN: Taking off, May 20.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Amelia 
Earhart and her 1937 
attempt to circle the globe,

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a flight that ended in 
mystery and tragedy.

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AMELIA EARHART, Pilot: This 
modern world of science and

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invention is of particular 
interest to women.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: Anderson uses 
Earhart's own voice, logs and 
letters layered into narration

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and music to produce a 22-track 
evocative mix of classical 
and electronic strings,

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effects, sounds and percussion, 
all of it composed and 
performed by Anderson,

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joined by other singers and 
an orchestra, to imagine her 
way into Earhart's cockpit.

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WOMAN: The instruments quiver.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: So I tried 
to imagine what it would 
be like for a pilot to be

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in a little plane like 
that with the motor 
going like aah days and

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days. This is really 
hot. There's no A.C. in 
these little cockpits.

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She's like this. What 
did that feel like?

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MAN: Amelia Earhart.

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JEFFREY BROWN: She also 
loved and connected with

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Earhart's deep interest in the 
latest technology of her time.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: She was not 
white gloves at all. She was 
down in the engine and seeing

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what's going on and working with 
her mechanics and her designers. 
And I really admire that.

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JEFFREY BROWN: That does 
sound a little like you.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: I identified 
with her, of course.

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JEFFREY BROWN: You did, 
from the beginning?

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LAURIE ANDERSON: Yes, I 
just -- there aren't many 
models for women in this

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country who do stuff. I 
just gravitated over to her. 
She's a Midwesterner also,

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so -- like me. And so 
I kind of thought, why 
would she want to do that?

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JEFFREY BROWN: Anderson 
has been known for asking 
herself and us pointed,

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sometimes unexpected 
questions, since her 
1981 song "O Superman."

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(MUSIC)

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JEFFREY BROWN: A mix of 
electronic music, words and 
movement that became an unlikely

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pop hit. It was a breakthrough 
into the larger culture after 
years as an avant-garde artist.

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One of her early 
signature pieces, "Duets 
on Ice" for violin and 
tape recorder performed

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on streets wearing skates frozen 
into a block of ice. When the 
ice melted, the music stopped,

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the ethos of the 1970s New 
York art and music world she 
was a big part of, experiment.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: We didn't know 
what we were doing. We didn't.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: But we 
wanted to make things. 
So we all had pickup

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trucks. We were all 
like DIY people. I mean,

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we helped each other. This is 
so key. We never thought we'd 
make a living doing this stuff,

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music and dance and theater. We 
just wanted to experiment, make 
something that wasn't there.

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JEFFREY BROWN: But 
somehow you did.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: And 
it was exhilarating.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Over the 
years, in addition to her 
13 albums and performances 
all over the world...

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WOMAN: I want to 
tell you a story.

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JEFFREY BROWN: ... Anderson 
has made films, like "Heart of 
a Dog," written a multimedia

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performance based on Herman 
Melville's "Moby-Dick," 
helped create the Opening

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Ceremony for the 2004 Athens 
Olympics, and created solo 
exhibits of her paintings and

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drawings, including The Weather, 
shown at the Hirshhorn Museum 
in Washington, D.C., in 2021.

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In 1992, she met 
another downtown star,

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rock 'n' roll legend Lou 
Reed. They worked together 
for the next 21 years,

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marrying in 2008 before his 
death in 2013. It was a loving 
partnership that encompassed

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Buddhism and tai chi, as 
well as music and, she 
says, constant artistic 
seeking and questioning.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: I talked 
to Lou a lot about why would 
-- why do anything and...

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JEFFREY BROWN: Why do anything?

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LAURIE ANDERSON: Why do 
anything? JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

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LAURIE ANDERSON: Why write this 
song? Why do this show? Why 
-- what do you here doing this

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for? And the answer really 
is that you just look 
for the brightest light 
possible and go that way.

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We had many conversations 
about what we were doing 
as artists and why we

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were doing it. And it 
was really about trying 
to go there, to that.

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JEFFREY BROWN: Now 77, 
Anderson is still going to 
new places with technology,

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including the world of A.I. 
She's working with a machine 
learning institute in Australia,

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which has inputted everything 
she and Reed wrote or 
recorded into a supercomputer.

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And how does that sound? 
How does that feel?

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LAURIE ANDERSON: This is 
not like a Ouija board 
and I'm talking to my 
dead husband. Really,

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I'm not actually crazy. But 
people have styles, and they 
are real things. I mean,

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I'm not afraid of machines 
taking over at all. I'm afraid 
of people becoming machines,

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not even seeing things 
for themselves or thinking 
for themselves. That's 
what I'm afraid of.

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JEFFREY BROWN: She's also become 
something of a TikTok sensation, 
as "O Superman" has been taken

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up and restyled by a new 
generation, especially 
her lines, "You don't 
know me, but I know you."

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LAURIE ANDERSON: I was thrilled 
because I want to be useful. I 
want to have people use this for

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something. As I learn more and 
more about what stories are, I 
realize, this is a constant. The

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stories you tell yourself 
about who you are and 
what you want, those are 
stories to help you live.

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If you don't have those 
suddenly, it's terrifying. I 
mean, you will keep living,

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you will keep eating, but it's 
the story that keeps you going.

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JEFFREY BROWN: After 
finishing work on Amelia,

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Laurie Anderson has turned 
to an even more ambitious 
work about nothing less

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than climate change and the 
possible end or saving of the 
world. She calls it "ARK."

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For the "PBS News Hour"...

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LAURIE ANDERSON: I'm 
Jeffrey Brown with...

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JEFFREY BROWN: Laurie Anderson.