As part of the weekend's kick off to the
Luminato Festival, the nine-day cultural festival celebrating creativity, New York performance artist Laurie Anderson looked into the crowd at David Pecaut Square and yelled "Let's hear it for the whistleblowers!"
It is this vivid imagery that launches an article that appeared in
Salon, documenting the Toronto performance called
Greetings From the Motherland and its enthusiastic crowd. Anderson's piece featured an experimental affair that put the current Edward Snowden whistleblowing case into a "dark, timely context" with an interview conversation with Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei projected via Skype across the square.
Salon reporter Mike Doherty describes a "gleaming-eyed" and "exhausted" Anderson after her show as he chats with the artist about her admiration of the significant--though illegal--importance of opening up dialogue. But it is her reasons for choosing to exhibit her performance in Toronto that is especially unique.
"Not that Anderson is trying to tell anyone what to think: she chose to present the work in Toronto, whose Luminato Festival commissioned it, in order to find a "neutral area" – easier said than done, given the long reach of the NSA," Doherty writes.
The interactive exhibit simultaneously projected translations in Chinese and English, and featured software "that creates a new relationship between words and imagery," according to Luminato's website. It is one of many unique exhibits taking place across Toronto this week.
Read the full story
here.
Original source: Salon