The experimental artist and director talks about her new film, The Heart of a Dog, the trouble with social media – and coming to terms with death

Hello Laurie! Your movie about your terrier, Lolabelle – her piano-playing and painting, her blindness and her death (1) – is moving audiences to tears at Telluride (2). Is it hard showing it?

Yes. It’s really personal and I don’t have the defences. These are stories I would do in a live show. But then I wouldn’t have to sit in the audience. I went on a long tour a few years ago and the repeated use of the word “I” made me almost lose my mind. I ended up truly hating myself.

You’re asking people to come up and tell you what they think of it.

Comments after, I really do enjoy. It’s not about the film. It’s someone saying something about themselves to me. This is great! I’m an anthropologist. We have our own lives to live and we gather information from other sources about how to do it. Everybody wants to find a little love, you know? And a little bit of power and knowledge. It’s really hard to learn that stuff. In the US, parenting doesn’t practically exist. (3) The guidance is just: “Well, things are a lot more difficult for you than for me. So good luck and see ya!”

There’s a lot in the film about the Tibetan Book of the Dead and how it advocates not crying while you grieve.

I didn’t realise really until this festival that there’s more death in this film than any car-crash movie. Everyone dies! What I love about the Tibetans is their focus on the main event: this person’s death. And trying to understand it without self-pity. The Buddhist point of view is also a journalistic one: to see things as they are. I appreciated the no-crying thing because I’m puritanical and filled with guilt and doubt. Lucky me! If you recognise death as a huge event primarily in someone else’s life, it becomes much more awesome. I felt very lucky to have that realisation.

Why is it people never quite seem prepared for it?

It’s scary, is why. Depending on your belief system you’re either erased or you’re wearing some sort of strange crown.

In the movie you show Lolabelle’s realisation she can be preyed on from above by eagles. Have people in the western world lost sight of that kind of threat? Do we think we’re invincible?

I never thought of it like that. Most of the people I know are not like that. Their invisibility is such a thing crushed. It’s usually just masking a whole lot of fear.

Isn’t it one of the problems about climate change? On some level people just won’t believe it?

Isn’t that ignorance not invincibility? It’s irritating, the TED-talk mentality of: “I’m going to fix the world with tech.” Their little microphones and chinos and powerpoint presentations and “Don’t worry, we’ll all be robots by then! It’ll be fantastic!” No, we won’t. We won’t be robots. And then you realise it’s strange how often you have to buy into the green movement by purchasing something. You realise they all have stuff to sell.

I just saw Danny Boyle discuss his Steve Jobs movie (4). He wanted to talk about the psychological influence of Jobs on the world. But everyone just wanted to hear about the casting or the products.

I’ve seen that a lot. The central problem is never mentioned. Ever. It’s taboo. It’s about the disappearance of American liberals. There really aren’t that many.

What happened to them?

I have a theory – something Susan Sontag whispered in my ear once. But I can’t tell you because it’s too weird. It’s not something you can say in this culture. It made a lot of sense to me. It’s an extremely conservative political climate. People are not very curious. I’m not really sure who the last person was who did have a coherent idea of the future. At the time, the civil rights movement didn’t seem coherent. It was very fractured and chaotic, everybody wanted different things. But it was supported by a complicated counterculture of music and clothes and education. And we don’t have that any more.

Maybe social media gives the impression of being constructive without actually being so.

It’s hard to create a positive energy. I watched the Occupy movement really get crushed. There was a serious effort to get rid of it. People are too busy and distracted to recognise that.

Perhaps the digital world helps you avoid categorisation?

Yes, and that’s a relief. I make stories, whether films or paintings or pieces of music.

But if your brand is just you, is that uncomfortable?

Extremely. It’s even worse to market your style. It’s truly sad. And everyone on Facebook has the same sort of marketing ploy selling their image.

What does that do to people?

It’s extremely brutalising that you’re going to be for sale. It’s one of the worst things you can possibly imagine. Go to any party and you see that: I just don’t think you’re worth talking to. Someone else has a bigger plus sign over their heads. Capitalism is an absolute disaster for human relations.

Laurie Anderson attends a photocall for The Heart of a Dog in Venice. Photograph: Elisabetta A. Villa/WireImage

Surely in non-capitalist societies, people still scan the room at parties?

Yes, every pack animal has that. If you’re a dog you want the leader to be the strongest and smartest and know where the food is. Dolphins and humans are the same – but our system is more volatile so it makes for more anxiety. I’m thinking about the difference between New York (5) and LA. LA has a voodoo economy. If you’re working on a film or album that’s a big hit or a flop, it’s the same reaction. The amount of work you did doesn’t seem to register. In New York, we’re more strategic: yes, it didn’t succeed but you made a really great thing. Plus we’re snobs – and snobs don’t want to go to flops.

Footnotes

1 Also that of her mother, her partner, Lou Reed, and a friend. Also about the aftermath of 9/11, the impact of the NSA, Anderson’s childhood and almost everything else you can imagine.



2 On Monday night there was also a bring-your-own-dog outdoor screening for locals.

3 The movie begins with a dream in which Anderson gives birth to Lolabelle after asking that she – as a full-grown dog – be stitched up inside her stomach. The dog’s-eye-point-of-view camera is likened to surveillance footage and drones.

4 Stars Michael Fassbender, another Telluride hit.

5 Anderson lives in Manhattan. Her new live project will be announced later this month. It’s been billed as being about ponies. “It’s stealth PR,” she says. “Nothing to do with ponies.”

• The Heart of a Dog is released in the US on 21 October 2015