The live audiovisual production will premiere at Manchester’s Aviva Studios in November.
This November, avant-garde musician and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson will debut her brand new stage show ARK: United States Part 5, bringing together new music, cinematic visuals and stories. Tying threads together from her five-decade-long career, it completes her previous multimedia project from the 80s, United States Parts 1-4.
Running for seven nights from 15-24 November, the show explores themes of climate collapse, environmental disaster, the development of AI, love, escape and isolation, while also detailing how the world might need to be changed to survive. Set in a surreal moment where the data cloud breaks and, as a result, reality and digital representation separate, Anderson asks: Are we running out of time? Is it too late?
Musically, ARK will showcase songs from throughout the artist’s career, alongside new work that includes a collaboration with Sacred Harp singers and music created with American jazz band Sexmob.
“For a long time I’ve wanted to make a new large-scale work about the United States – a collection of songs and stories about what has shaped this country in the 21st century,” Anderson said.
“I plan to tell these stories moving through myth, journalism, fable, and TikTok, conjuring alternate realities and stories from my own life. Part ruminations, part long-form poems, ARK will also be a kind of 3D movie.”
Anderson, who received the Grammys Lifetime Achievement Award and Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication this year, will also release her new album Amelia on 30 August.
Tickets are now on sale on the Factory International website.