Laurie Anderson + Dean Buonomano

“One type of memory error that we make — a memory bug — is really a product of the fact that in human memory, there’s no distinction between storage and retrieval. So when a computer writes something down, it has one laser that’s used to store the memory and another laser to retrieve the memory, and those are very distinct processes. In human memory, the distinction between storage and retrieval is not very clear, and this can have very dramatic consequences. … The act of retrieving a memory can affect the storage.” – Dean Buonomano
From O Superman in 1980 to Homeland released in 2010, Laurie Anderson is acknowledged as one of today’s premier performance artists. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. Major works include United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick, a multimedia stage performance based on the novel by Herman Melville. Laurie Anderson’s visual work has been presented in major museums throughout the United States and Europe, including The Missing Peace here at the Rubin Museum of Art. This marks her sixth appearance at the Rubin Museum of Art.
Dean Buonomano is a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology, and a member of the Brain Research Institute, and the Integrative Center for Learning and Memory at UCLA. His research focuses on the neural basis of learning and memory, neural computation, and how the brain tells time. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He has been interviewed about his research on timing and neural computation for Newsweek, Discover Magazine, Scientific American, Los Angeles Times, New Scientist, and The New Yorker.