Local Report 2012

Local Report 2012, a project of Creative Time Reports, is an international cell phone performance work in which Robert Whitman will gather live reports from approximately ninety participants in cities around the world to create a live sound and video performance and continuing installation, composing in real time what he calls "a cultural map of the world." This work will be performed/centered at New York City's Eyebeam Art + Techonology Center (http://www.eyebeam.org/) on October 11, 2012, during the launch of Creative Time Reports.

Local Report 2012 is the latest version of a media and telecommunications performance concept that Whitman began in 1972, in which reporters, spread throughout New York City, made calls over pay phones and their reports were broadcast on a local radio station. Over the years the performances have moved from pay phones to cell phones, to video cell phones coupled with the Internet; and the scope has expanded from one city to embrace the whole world. Though the scope is international, the title of the new work is Local Report 2012, as today the global is local.

Local Report 2012 is produced by Creative Time Reports and will be performed from 7-8 pm (Eastern Daylight Time) on October 11, 2012, at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City. An audience in the performance/control space in New York can watch the performance/creation of the piece. Additional viewing sites have been organized so that remote audiences can view the performance of the piece, as calls and video images come in live from around the world, and have the same viewer experience as the audience at the New york site.

The Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts is participating in the project as a satellite performance viewing site as part of ZERO 1's 2012 Biennial. Other satellite receiving sites are being organized at the School of Art in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University; Le Consortium, Dijon, France; and at a local art cinema in Leeds, England.

There are two parts to Local Report 2012: the hour-long performce with live, real-time gathering of video and voice reports which are projected on screens and played on speakers during the hour, and second, the continuing sound and video installation created by the preformance.

During the performance each reporter makes four calls -- two video calls and two voice calls -- to the performance area, each from a different location in their city or area. During the video call the reporters will shoot and transmit a 20-second video clip of their surroundings. The voice call will be a brief verbal description of what the reporter sees at that moment.

At the performance center the 20-second video clips will come in live, and will be projected on large screens in the order in which are received with no intervention by Whitman. There will be five screens, the video reports will be projected on successive screens, each 20-second segment moving left to right from one screen to the next as a new report comes in.

For the voice call, the reporter will, if the line is occupied, be put on hold, and when his/her turn comes, will be cued to start speaking, and Whitman will determine when to end it and go on to the next call. The voice reports will be played on speakers situated around the space.

The sound and video reports be recorded and looped to make a five-screen installation to be shown in the Eyebeam space for two weeks after the performance.

Up to ninety reporters or teams of reporters in cities all over the world will be recruited to participate during the hour of the performance. Their video cell phones will be equipped with a special Local Report app developed by Shawn Van Every of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University with the assistance of Jaron Moore of Stanford University. Reporters will be found through friends and contacts and will sign up at the project website, after which they will be able to load the special project app to their video cell phones.