
Anne McGuire
2021Strain Andromeda The
Anne McGuire
With Strain Andromeda The, video 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 mesmerising quality that defies description. The original film plot is one filled with tension in a 'race against time', which only adds to this effect.
Strain Andromeda The
Oh Hi Anne
Anne McGuire
George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar
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
All Smiles and Sadness
Anne McGuire
George Kuchar
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
The Waltons
Anne McGuire
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
Domain of the Pixel Pixies
George Kuchar
George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar
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