In this, the second of two signature events, guest director Laurie Anderson began with the notion that watching things go wrong can be a lot of fun.
Take, for instance, her idea she could do a stand-up routine.
Turns out the jokes are pretty funny: one is about a couple who wait for their children to die before they divorce, and the other is that it’s a good thing for church architecture that Jesus was killed in the New Testament and not the Old, a cross being a better template for a building than a pile of stones.
Stand-up’s loss has been NASA’s gain – think Popes in space –though when the US Senate rumbled they were paying for an artist in residence as well as a multi billion dollar space programme, they pulled the plug.
Anderson simply moved her residency back to the world and Slideshow was a catalogue of curated works and stories from Guantanamo to a remote Amish outpost in heavy weather.
From each she draws her trademark bittersweet and unsettling observations, black humour and goofy irony.
Nearly two hours with no interval is a long time to tell stories. Next time Plan B.
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