Anderson was natural inside Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She attended Mills College in California, and finally graduated from either Barnard College magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, studying art history. Around 1972, she found an MFA around sculpture from either Columbia University.

She performed around New York through the 1970s, becoming more popularly known around 1981 with the lone "O Superman", which reached number ii on the national popular stock and index charts around Britain. "O Superman" was the portion of a big stage function entitled United States and included on the as punishment album Big Science. Her supplementary recent stage function includes the multimedia system presentation elysian by Moby-Dick. She starred inside & directed a 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave, and too composed a soundtracks for the Spalding Gray films Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box. Her varied career potentially involved voice-acting in the alive film The Rugrats Movie. Within 1994 she created a CD-ROM entitled Puppet Motel.

She wrote the supplemental article on the ethnic character of New York City for the Encyclopædia Britannicaand in a late 1980s hosted the PBS series, Alive from Off Center, for which she produced the short film, What You Mean We?.

Anderson has collaborated by owning William Burroughs, Mitchell Froom, Peter Gabriel, Perry Hoberman, David Sylvian and boyfriend Lou Reed. She besides worked by having comedian Andy Kaufman within the late 1970s (with the romanticistic involvement hinted at in a select few of her spoken word performances all about him).

Anderson, world health organization seldom revisits older act (though themes & lyrics once around the while reappear) went on the road performing a choice of her right-known musical pieces in 2001. One of these performances was recorded inside Just released York City sole a week fallowing the September 11, 2001 attacks, and included the stirring performance of "O Superman" which contained lyrics that near seemed to predict a cases of September 11. This concert wwhen freed inside early 2002 as a Video, Sleep in Up to date York, which remains her virtually all recent album release.

Around 2003, Anderson became NASA's first (&, she says, go) artist-within-home, which inspired her virtually all recent performance piece, A Prevent of the Moon.

Rumour emerged of the imaginable recently album release in the fall of 2004, however this turned dead set exist when treasonably when Anderson seems besides occupy mounting the succession of themed shows, as well as composing the piece for Expo 2005 in Japan.

Discography
(sustaining U.S. chart positions) Albums
Big Science (1982) #124 Mister Heartbreak (1984) #60 United States Live (box placed) (1984) #192 Home of the Brave (soundtrack album) (1986) #145 Strange Angels (1989) #171 Bright Red (1994) #195 The Ugly One with the Jewels (spoken word) (1995) Talk Normal (greatest hits) (2000) Life on a String (2001) Live in New York (2002)

Singles
"O Superman (For Massenet)" (1981) "Big Science" (1981) "Sharkey's Day" (1984) "Language is a Virus" (1986) "Strange Angels" (1989) "In Our Sleep" (1994)

|rowspan="2"|Year |rowspan="2"| Title |colspan="4"| Chart positions |rowspan="2"| Album |-

|US Hot 100 |US Modern Rock |US Mainstream Rock |UK |- | 1981 | "O Superman (For Massenet)" | - | - | - | #2 | Single |- | 1989 | "Babydoll" | - | #7 | - | - | Unknown Angels |}

Andersin besides recorded the total of limited-release singles in the late 1970s, songs from either which were involved on the total of compilations, including Giorno Poetry Systems' A Nova Convention & ''Your family're a Guy I personally Obviously Spend The Money Using. She too performs in recordings by more musicians like Peter Gabriel and Lou Reed.

Notes
"Encyclopaedia Anderson", The New Yorker'', July 16, 2001