Bay Area-artist Anne McGuire says she doesn’t mind when her performance partner tries to trip her up while singing live.
McGuire, a prolific video and performance artist, sings original and often improvised lyrics while longtime collaborator Wobbly (Jon Leidecker) provides accompaniment with a synthesizer and sampler. Usually they perform alongside video McGuire has shot.
While she sings, Wobbly likes to do his own thing, she said.
“He usually starts off harmonious,” McGuire said. “And then he’ll throw a wrench in.”
McGuire characterizes her partnership with Wobbly, known for his experimental electronic music, as enjoyably challenging. The two can riff off of each other while simultaneously developing a piece together, she said.
Known as The Freddy McGuire Show, the pair will again team up as part of ATA’s set of four audio and visual presentations this Friday night starting at 8 p.m. (tickets are $10). Others showing work Friday include Kerry Laitala, Konrad Steiner, Paul Clipson and Joshua Churchill.
While most performers would probably relish a perfect set, McGuire doesn’t seem to have a need or even a desire for everything to be even-keeled.
Since the 1980s she’s created videos that play with imperfections, chronology and narrative rules.
“Strain Andromeda The,” McGuire’s 1992 re-edit of the 1971 film “The Andromeda Strain,” earned her particular acclaim for the way she created an entirely new work of art by reversing the original film shot by shot, so that the last scene of the film is the first and the first scene is the last.
Her piece with Wobbly, called “7 Lies,” is slated to be roughly about five minutes long, give or take a few.
McGuire describes “7 Lies” as “kind of a tragic torched love song,” about the various deceits our partners tell us.
She and Wobbly, who have collaborated since the late 1990s, first performed the song, appropriately, last Valentine’s Day at The Exploratorium. By performing the piece again, McGuire hopes she and Wobbly can continue to tweak it further.
“If I feel challenged by something I keep playing with it,” McGuire said.
She said she feels to the need to make art in various mediums. McGuire’s extraordinary breadth of work includes experimental videos, paintings, creative writing and performance art.
“I think I’m working in different ways and telling different stories and just trying to figure things out, like most people.”
