Davy McGuire and Kristin McGuire, also known as Studio McGuire, are :Category:British multimedia artists|British multimedia artists. They use digital illusion techniques within the mediums of projection mapping, theatre, fine art and moving image.
Early Careers and Personal Lives
The duo met in 2004 during a student exchange in Arnhem and married in 2005 in England. Davy McGuire graduated from Dartington College of Arts in 2005 with a degree in Devised Theatre, whereas Kristin McGuire studied Contemporary and Classical Dance at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. Whilst continuously collaborating on joint art projects Kristin worked as a dancer with a variety of international dance and theatre companies including Cirque du Soleil until the duo set up their joint studio in Bristol. In 2017 Kristin graduated from Glasgow School of Art as a Master of Research in Creative Practices. The duo is now resident in Kingston upon Hull where they create work under their company name Studio McGuire. They are represented by in New York, Woolff Gallery in London and the Projection Mapping Association of Japan in Tokyo and their works have been shown in more than 120 venues across 19 countries.
Theatrical Projects
The Icebook
During a 4-month residency at the Davy and Kristin created the Icebook, the world's first projection mapped pop up book in which a story is back projected onto the pages of the book. After putting a trailer of the work online, it went viral and launched the pair as an artist duo who had invented a new artistic medium by fusing projection mapping, paper craft, book art, theatre, performance and animation. The Icebook has been featured internationally on TV, as well as being published in Digital Arts, Contagious Magazine and Elle Girl Korea and several thousand international websites and blogs. Since 2011 the Icebook has toured to at least 60 art festivals, theatre festivals, digital art festivals, cinemas and film festivals, conferences and art galleries around Europe, America and Asia.
The Paper Architect
In 2013 Davy and Kristin received the Oxford Samuel Becket Theatre Award for their presentation of two projected paper dioramas, The Hunter and Psycho - Homage to Hitchcock. The production grant was awarded to create The Paper Architect, a theatre show blending paper craft, animation and live action, co-produced by the Barbican Centre London with in association with the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. The Paper Architect was invited to Perth International Arts Festival in 2015 where it won the Helpmann Award for Best Visual Theatre Production.
For Christmas 2011, Davy and Kristin McGuire designed and directed a stage adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle at the Southwark Playhouse, who also commissioned the project. The production involved actors interacting with live video projections onto a set that replicated a paper pop-up castle. Howl's Moving Castle was adapted for the stage by Mike Sizemore and featured an original score by Fyfe Dangerfield. The cast included Stephen Fry as narrator Daniel Ings as Howl, Susan Sheridan as old Sophie, James Wilkes as Calcifer and Kristin played the part of young Sophie and the Witch of the Waste. Prior to its premiere Howl's Moving Castle received considerable media attention featuring on TV BBC News London, The Late Show with Joanne Good on BBC Radio London, national press and BBC online. After initial challenges due to technical difficulties Howl's Moving Castle sold out during the last weeks of a 6-week run. The production was Time Out's Critic's Choice in December and received four-star reviews from Metro and The Public Reviews. Reviews praised the imaginative staging, the groundbreaking and ambitious technical ability of the projections, and the visuals. Despite some mixed reviews the show was received as a production that successfully married film and theatre: "Is it a play, is it a film, is it an installation? No - it's super-theatre!" The show inspired Southwark Playhouse’s 2016 production of another story associated with Studio Ghibli, Kiki's Delivery Service.
Silent Movie
In 2007 Stroud Valleys Arts Space gave Davy and Kristin permission to create performance work for their annual Site Festival in Stroud. Davy and Kristin thus created and performed Silent Movie, a multimedia performance that mixes projections and live acting. The plot, which recounts a love story between a couple, is evocative of the silent movie genre from the beginning of the 20th century. The performance is viewed by an audience of 15 people through peep holes made in the front wall of a huge wooden box or a shopping window. In 2008 Silent Movie was shown at the Macau Arts Festival in China.
In 2012 Congnac company Courvoisier commissioned the McGuires to create a bespoke theatrical installation showcasing the brand’s craftsmanship and the story of its history through a projected paper theatre. The installation which was displayed in Harrods of London in December 2012 received positive media attention.
A Journey to Wonderland
In 2013, ELLE Magazine China commissioned Davy and Kristin to design and direct a short film featuring Chinese actress Zhou Xun wearing Chanel outfits and jewelry. The film was created as a digital accompaniment of a special 25th anniversary editorial for ELLE China‘s iPad edition.
Floating City
For Christmas 2013, the McGuires joined a team of artists headed by commissioned by Barneys to decorate the shop windows of their Madison Avenue store in New York. Floating City was a large scale animated paper structure suspended inside one of the windows. The suspended paper model repeatedly transformed through projection mapping displaying a short looping New York time lapse.
Mikimoto
The Mcguires created a Christmas window display in 2016 for luxury pearl manufacturers Mikimoto's flagship store in Ghinza Road Tokyo. The installation combined paper architecture with shadow play and digital projection.
Public Commissions
A Study of Eating Habits
In 2005 Davy and Kristin created their multimedia installation A Study of Eating Habits using early techniques of video projection mapping which has since become a signature of most of their works. For A Study of Eating Habits, the couple filmed themselves in their domestic environment over a period of a week and projected the sped up footage back onto the doors, tables and windows which they transferred from their house to a black box gallery space. A Study of Eating Habits was shown at the 2006 European Media Arts Festival in Germany, the 2006 BBC Big Screen Liverpool and the 2008 Macau Arts Festival in China.
Peepboardpleasure
In 2010, Davy and Kristin created a piece based on the illustrations of a traditional seaside peep-through board being replaced by moving video projections. Passers by are needed to poke their head through the holes in the board, thus turning them into fictional moving characters. Peepboardpleasure has been shown in Bristol, as part of the Grüne Meile Festival in Germany, at Burdall's Yard in Bath and the Artsby the Sea Festival 2012 in Bournemouth. The artists were awarded a second stipend from the Künstlerdorf Schöppingen for this work for which they created the interactive video installation Peepboardpleasure - A Peep Board with a Twist.
Psycho - Homage to Hitchcock
Psycho - Homage to Hitchcock is a projection mapped paper diorama created in 2012 depicting a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho movie. The installation consists of a TV screen and a paper replica of the Bates' house depicting a murder scene in a shower. The documentation trailer of the installation received a staff pick on Vimeo.
The Hunter
As part of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award short listing process Davy and Kristin created The Hunter, a projection mapped paper diorama which subsequently won the couple the award. The Hunter has since been exhibited at the 12th Quenington Sculpture Show, the Doddington Sculpture Show, as part of the McGuire's retrospective in Shoreditch Town Hall in London, the World of Projection Mapping Festival in Kagawa/Japan and A Lamb in Wolf's Clothing in Bermondsey, London.
Ophelia's Ghost
Ophelia‘s Ghost is a life sized holographic projection of Hamlet's Ophelia into a water filled basin creating the illusion of a ghostly presence underwater; it was commissioned by Altered Festival's 2015 Contemporary Art in Ancient Churches programme and has been shown as part of Compton Verney Art Gallery's exhibition Shakespeare in Art.
Starkers
In October 2015 they produced an installation called Starkers for the Museums at Night commission at Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead. The piece used projection mapping to make an animate a 200 year old statue called Pauline talk to the audience depicting its experience of body image and mortality.
Micropolis
They were commissioned by Hull UK City of Culture to create an installation as part of The Land of Green Ginger project. Micropolis was a 10 x 10 x 5 metre cardboard sculpture of a miniature city which contained digital projections of the cities miniature inhabitants
Collections
Jam Jar Fairy Series
In 2013 the Royal Shakespeare Company commissioned Davy and Kristin to create Sprite Symphony, an art installation using pico projectors to create a display of holographic fairies projected into jam jars. The fairies knock and tap on their jars and thereby create a polyphonic musical composition. Sprite Symphony was exhibited in the RSC theatre foyer in Stratford upon Avon throughout winter 2013, at the in Newcastle/Gateshead in December 2013, as part of the McGuire's retrospective in Shoreditch Town Hall, at and as part of A Lamb in Wolf's Clothing in Bermondsey, London in 2014. The installation was later developed into individual units in order to accommodate the demand for purchasing individual fairy holograms, thus creating the Jam Jar Fairy Series.
Pinboard
In 2008 the pair created their first music video, The Girl with two Tone Hair which they later turned into a video installation entitled Pinboard. Pinboard was first exhibited at the Stroud Site Festival in 2010. In 2011 the Quenington Sculpture Trust awarded Davy and Kristin a bursary to include Pinboard in the trust's biennial showcase. Pinboard was part of Barn Gallery's Artspace, a showcase of their work at Burdall's Yard in Bath in 2012, their retrospective The Hunter at Shoreditch Town Hall in London and MEDI-ARTz Zushi Festival in Japan in 2014.
The Dark Dolls House
In 2018 The McGuires created a body of work for a solo exhibition at Woolff Gallery in London. Inspired by Film Noir, the pieces are black, wall hanging, wooden dolls houses that are digitally animated with moving images of various Film Noir Characters.
Music videos
American alternative rock band Thursday commissioned Davy and Kristin to direct and produce Magnets Caught in a Metal Heart, a music video for their album No Devolución which Kerrang mentioned as "this stunning, artistic video for this killer new song". Through London based production house Davy and Kristin got to direct a music video for BRIT Award nominated Guillemots. Guillemot's lead singer Fyfe Dangerfield has since composed an original score for their stage adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle. The 2014 video Yanlış Seçim follows singer Atakan Ilgazdağ through film sets made out of paper.
Short Films
Parting
French TV channel Canal+ commissioned 11 film makers to create a short film of 1:11 min length to commemorate 9/11.
Live Art
Shooting the Messenger
Their first live art piece, entitled Shooting the Messenger was made in 2010 and took them on a hitchhiking tour around Great Britain in which they explored Marshal McLuhan's theories on the global village. Davy gave a talk about his experiences during this adventure at ACC Galerie, Weimar on 21 May 2010.
