Rien dans les poches / Nothing in My Pockets

Rien dans les poches by Laurie Anderson was originally a sound diary kept between 4 July and 4 October 2003 for the Atelier de Création Radiophonique on France Culture, in which she unfolds her daily life as an artist by becoming the electronic and sonic architect of her own existence. A sound diary (2 CDs included in this book) that Laurie Anderson extends here through her texts and her photos across the pages. An opportunity for an intimate journey into the artist’s personal universe throughout this period and her many travels, the landscapes she passes through everywhere and every day – for three months.
Laurie Anderson began her career as a sound experimenter (electronic pop) and singer with the track O Superman, which propelled her into the British charts as soon as it was released. For twenty years, an unavoidable figure of the Velvet Underground and of the New York art scene, Laurie Anderson has used electronic means – sounds and images – to weave an exceptional artistic expression, confirmed by her world tour of 2009.

The ZagZig collection published by Dis Voir, directed by Philippe Langlois & Frank Smith, producers of the programme l’Atelier de Création Radiophonique on France Culture, follows in the wake of this laboratory of sound experimentation, which confronts artistic practice in all directions with radio writing. The aim of this unprecedented editorial space is, by a movement of translation, to bring works into existence beyond their broadcast on the airwaves, in the form of books/discs conceived with the artists so as to create genuine plastic objects.

The sound piece Rien dans les poches, 2 CDs included in this book, is a commission from the Atelier de Création Radiophonique (ACR) of France Culture, made with the support of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP)/Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, as part of a public commission.

It was broadcast in two parts on 5 and 12 November 2006.

Excerpt: