I'll Be Your Mirror

I'll Be Your Mirror description

“I was working with the Machine Learning Institute and Sia Furler Institute in Adelaide and they made algorithms out of things I’ve said and written, creating a writing machine made from my vocabulary, pace and style. They did the same with Lou Reed, my partner for 21 years. These are activated by writing short phrases. The engines then write in those styles, which can also be combined or put into prose.” – Laurie Anderson 

Laurie Anderson is working at the cutting edge of new arts technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Her exhibition I’ll Be Your Mirror premiered in 2023 at Moderna Museet Stockholm, featuring work generated by AI Laurie Anderson and AI Lou Reed. For Adelaide Festival, the exhibition will also feature Scroll (2021), an AI-generated version of the Bible created by Laurie Anderson and first shown at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. 

I’ll Be Your Mirror and Scroll were created using AI software developed by the Australian Institute of Machine Learning and the Sia Furler Institute for Laurie Anderson during her tenure as the world’s first AI Artist in Residence at the University of Adelaide. She is now using the software to write the lyrics for her multimedia work Ark, which will premiere in Manchester in 2024.  

Laurie Anderson last joined Adelaide Festival in 2013 with Dirtday! and a performance with Kronos Quartet. In addition to the exhibition, the artist herself will join us via live stream for In Conversation with Laurie Anderson at Bonython Hall. 

Anderson is one of the reasons we needed to mint terms like ‘multimedia’ and ‘interdisciplinary’… [Her] strategy as an artist is to lure you over to the fence, just so you can get a glimpse of the other side.

The Washington Post

I’ll Be Your Mirror is presented by Adelaide Festival in collaboration with the Sia Furler Institute of Contemporary Music and Media, The University of Adelaide.