Anne McGuire
Directing
Biography
Anne McGuire was born in Minnesota and has lived in San Francisco since 1990. She began making videos in the late 1980s while she was a student. She has taught at various institutions in California including the San Francisco Art Institute, University of California Santa Cruz, and Stanford University, as well as KyungSung University in Busan, South Korea. Through her single-channel works, McGuire translates traditions of personal and poetic performances to camera, playing off of conventions of television. She has explored the personal through formal narrative, particularly in The Strain Andromeda, her 1993 end-to-beginning re-edit of Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain. Strain was her first foray into disaster deconstruction. In 2006 Anne completed The Adventure Poseiden (The Unsinking of My Ship), which celebrates the 20-year anniversary of her very own real-life shipwreck experience. She also writes poems and sings them as songs, and has performed as Freddy McGuire with San Francisco-based electronic musician Wobbly, live and on radio.
Known For
Cinderella by Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Cinderella
With Strain Andromeda The, artist Anne McGuire has created an awesome and spellbinding film that throws everything from story structure to character motivation into question. Put simply, McGuire has taken Robert Wise's entire 1971 virus from outer space classic The Andromeda Strain and re-edited it shot-by-shot precisely in reverse, so that the last shot appears first and the first last, though nothing is actually running backwards. As the film unfolds (or reverts?), more and more information about how the characters and their surroundings came about is revealed to us. While initially confusing, the film quickly takes on an ominous and mesmerizing quality that defies description. The original film plot is one filled with tension in a 'race against time' which only adds to this effect. -Michael Sippings, Brighton Cinematheque
Strain Andromeda The
In San Francisco, a group of clones devoid of emotion are slowly being replaced one by one by humans.
Snatchers Body of the Invasion
The artist stalks and serenades Joe Dimaggio in her car as he strolls the docks unaware that she is videotaping his every step.
Joe Dimaggio 1, 2, 3
McGuire constructs a murky black and white soap-opera world of endless, timeless, and placeless limbo, where the characters talk to each other entirely in clichés, bad poetry, and other contrite forms of speech — a short TV show in which nothing is resolved. The video culminates in an absolutely stunning monologue performance by legendary underground film and videomaker George Kuchar.
All Smiles and Sadness
An epic tale of love and loss. Made using voicemails the Kuchar brothers left on her home answering machine, the artist reveals George and Mike in all their candid honesty leading up to and following George’s untimely death in 2011. McGuire floats their voices along a river of digital scribbles and her own voice in singer/songwriter mode. The beauty of the piece lies partly in how the voicemails, used as-is and chronologically, contain an entire narrative about love and loss in a DIY style reminiscent of the Kuchars.
Oh Hi Anne
Sort of a portrait of the videomaker Anne McQuire, who surfaces midway from this waterlogged landscape of El Nino disasters to dispense charm and chocolate within the confines of her concrete office. There is also a flood of imagery that flows in and out of art museums, viewing facilities, and eateries that are perpetually haunted by yours truly along with the spirit of hoboism that feeds on apple pie America.
Domain of the Pixel Pixies
A deft and cunning re-examination of John-Boy’s near-death experience at the sawmill. A homespun midnight deconstruction of an entire era of television mannerisms. The handheld camera doesn’t stray far from the TV screen, dividing attention between the show’s action and the off-camera activity in the apartment. (Video Data Bank)
The Waltons
Anne McGuire’s tortured evocation of psychic disarray