Voicing the Clone: Laurie Anderson and Technologies of Reproduction

Abstract

In the 1980s, new reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer became commercially available in the United States, and somatic cell nuclear transfer—the cloning process by which Dolly the Sheep would be conceived in 1996—was in its experimental phase. While anxieties concerning these new technologies escalated in the popular sensorium, Laurie Anderson explored the phenomenon of cloning in a short musical film called What You Mean We? (1986) in which Anderson consults a design team to clone herself in order to manage her demanding workload. The videographic image of the clone is Anderson herself, performing in drag, and her clone’s body is partially created through the use of a pitch shifter which changes Anderson’s voice to that of the cloned—but ostensibly male—version of herself. In this article, I investigate Anderson’s technological consideration of the body, which extends beyond her own corporeality, to interrogate the biological and affective capacities of clones. I consider how Anderson addresses the convergence of reproductive technologies, the market and the creation of subjects within this market as participating in a shift in how voices are heard, governed and reproduced in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Purity is Not the Point

“…The idea that no fish is safe encapsulates both halves of this article’s intervention. On the one hand, there is the diffusion of reproductive risk and harm through time and space ( Murphy, 2013 ), which impacts us all and is a cause for universal concern even as it is unjustly distributed “slow violence” ( Murphy, 2017 ; Nixon, 2011 ). Such uneven diffusion complicates assigning fault, responsibility, or regulatory jurisdiction, and it confounds the agency of individual actors.…”

Sonic Cyberfeminisms: Introduction

“…Furthermore, cyberfeminisms’ interest in technology has always extended beyond cyberspace: cyberfeminists have addressed various technological practices and futurities, and have historically engaged in emerging reproductive technologies. Maria Murphy’s ‘Voicing the clone: Laurie Anderson and technologies of reproduction’ (2021, this issue) reads Laurie Anderson’s 1986 short musical film What You Mean We? in the context of emergent new reproductive technologies, including cloning, and the concurrent sociocultural enthusiasm and anxieties.…”