Laurie Anderson recently appeared on Progressive Radio, the weekly broadcast hosted by The Progressive magazine's editor Matthew Rothschild, to discuss her latest project, Homeland, and the many socio-political issues it addresses, most notably the war in Iraq and the challenges of forming a coherent opposition to it when faced with an administration so well-schooled in framing the issue, or as she sees it, story telling. In light of this, her response was to tell her own version of the story, through Homeland.

"As an artist," she tells Rothschild, "I don't think that art is the best way to do politics. But I can't help it now. It's invaded too much of my own life, and it's invaded it in a way that's very basic, which is on the level of story telling." The method, she reveals, is a basic one: "I really do try to open my eyes. You don't have to make anything up. All you have to do is point over to various things that are happening."

Anderson points out that she when she set out to respond to very real threats, like the events of 9/11 and the resulting restrictions on civil liberties, her aim was never to react blindly to them but to open up the dialog about possible solutions. It is something she feels the government ignored, acting with little or no transparency, and few demanded.

"I'll tell you," she says, "I don't hear those voices. I don't hear, now that Susan Sontag is gone, who's speaking up? Where are the American intellectuals, the American artists, standing up and saying things. I just don't hear it. It's like a deafening silence."

With Homeland, Laurie hopes to open the dialog by bringing its absence to light. She performs the piece tonight at the Teatro Central in Sevilla, Spain, and then at the Auditoria de Garcia in Santiago de Compostela, in that country's northwestern region, on Friday.

To read excerpts from the transcripts and to listen to the complete 28-minute interview, visit progressive.org.