Artist Jeremy Rourke is collaborating with Artists Television Access (ATA) on I’ll Be Around, a portrait of changing San Francisco as illustrated by the history and present-day reality of ATA, a vibrant hub for art and film. His process will include working in ATA’s window gallery, projecting footage from its archives on the windows above the street and gathering interviews, reactions, hopes, impressions, audio, and video from passersby. Documentation produced through this research will be incorporated into his performances, archived, and made accessible to visitors.
ATA was founded in 1984 by artists and activists committed to using video, performance, art, and education to advance community and culture. In the mid-1980s, Craig Baldwin and Other Cinema became co-tenants at ATA, and Baldwin will partner with Rourke and other ATA-affiliated artists on I’ll Be Around. The finished work, an experimental animated documentary, will be presented in an expanded cinema event in which the animation will respond to Rourke’s performance and incorporate audience participation. Rourke will present a performance-lecture based on his work in May 2017 and a full performance in October 2017.