Hunger in LA
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| Hunger in LA | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| VR/AR | Virtual Reality |
| Developer | Bradley Newman |
| Director | Nonny de la Peña |
| Producer | Nonny de la Peña; Virtual Pyedog |
| Type | Experience |
| Genre | Simulation, Educational |
| Website | https://emblematicgroup.com/experiences/hunger-in-la/ |
| Infobox Updated | 2026-10-13 |
Hunger in LA, also titled Hunger in Los Angeles, is a virtual reality journalism experience created by Nonny de la Peña. It reconstructs an emergency at a Los Angeles food bank using recorded audio and animated characters. The original installation was presented in Sundance's New Frontier program in January 2012.[1][2]
Features
The scene represents the food line outside the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. A man with diabetes collapses while waiting for food, and an ambulance is called. The audio comes from a recording made during the actual incident; the people and surroundings are a computer-generated reconstruction.[2][3]
At Sundance, participants wore earphones and a head-mounted display and viewed the scene from within a three-dimensional street and food line. The festival's contemporary account described the installation as a five-minute work in progress.[1] The participant's position made them a witness to the incident. USC's account reported that some visitors tried to help the collapsed man but could not intervene in the reconstructed event.[3]
Production
Hunger in LA was a collaboration between USC's School of Cinematic Arts, Annenberg School of Journalism, Institute for Creative Technologies and Mixed Reality (MxR) Lab.[3] MIT's project catalog credits de la Peña and Virtual Pyedog as producers, Bradley Newman as developer and Sand Castle Studios as designers.[4]
| Contributor | Documented work |
|---|---|
| Nonny de la Peña | Created the immersive journalism reconstruction.[2] |
| Bradley Newman | Used Autodesk Maya for modeling, texturing, character rigging and applying captured animation. His Unity 3D work included code, effects, audio playback and collision triggers.[5] |
| John Brennan | Art direction, character motion-capture acting and editing the captured animation.[5] |
| Mark Bolas | Creative producer, as credited by USC's contemporary festival report.[6] |
| AXYZ Design | Donated virtual human models, according to de la Peña's 2014 interview.[7] |
Original installation hardware
The Sundance presentation used a prototype headset. The creator and Newman credit its development at USC to Mark Bolas, Palmer Luckey, Thai Phan and Evan Suma. Their retrospective accounts connect this hardware to the development of the Oculus Rift; they describe a prototype used for the 2012 installation.[2][5]
Newman's production account identifies PhaseSpace equipment for both motion capture of the actors and tracking the headset during the experience. It credits Tracy McSheery of PhaseSpace with providing tracking and sponsorship.[5]
Journalism and research context
De la Peña and colleagues had described immersive journalism in a 2010 paper as a way to present news through a first-person experience of a reconstructed situation. The paper discusses the distinction between documentary recordings and synthetic material such as models and animation. Hunger in LA combines these forms: its incident audio is a recording, while its visual scene is a reconstruction.[8][1] The paper's demonstration concerned a different prison scenario and was explicitly not a formal experiment; it did not test Hunger in LA.[8]
Contemporary accounts described emotional reactions to the installation. USC reported visitors crying and quoted Bolas on their expectation of being able to help. These accounts describe observed reactions, rather than a controlled measurement of empathy or lasting behavioral change.[3]
Later distribution
A later Steam release is listed as Hunger, with a release date of 1 February 2017 and Emblematic Group as developer and publisher. Its description identifies the food-bank reconstruction and the original 2012 Sundance premiere. That storefront date concerns the later distribution, rather than the original installation's premiere.[9]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Exploring the Future Normal at New Frontier 2012". Sundance Institute. 2012-01-21. https://www.sundance.org/blogs/exploring-the-future-normal-at-new-frontier-2012-3/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Hunger in L.A.". Emblematic Group. https://emblematicgroup.com/experiences/hunger-in-la/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Immersing in Sundance". USC School of Cinematic Arts. 2012-02-10. https://cinema.usc.edu/news/article.cfm?id=12453. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ "Hunger in Los Angeles". MIT Open Documentary Lab: Docubase. https://docubase.mit.edu/project/hunger-in-los-angeles/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "Hunger In LA". Bradley Newman. https://www.bradleynewman.io/hunger-in-la. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ "Hunger in Los Angeles @ Sundance". USC School of Cinematic Arts Sundance blog. 2012-02-07. https://sundance.usc.edu/?paged=4. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ Kent Bye (2014-05-28). "#6: Nonny de la Peña on Immersive Journalism, Empathy in VR storytelling, Human Rights, Virtual Identity, Diversity in VR & collaborating with Palmer Luckey at USC". Voices of VR. https://voicesofvr.com/?p=118. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 de la Peña, Nonny; Weil, Peggy; Llobera, Joan; Giannopoulos, Elias; Pomés, Ausiàs; Spanlang, Bernhard; Friedman, Doron; Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.; Slater, Mel (2010). "Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of News". Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 19 (4): 291-301. doi:10.1162/PRES_a_00005. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
- ↑ "Hunger" (in French). Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/436740/Hunger/?l=french. Retrieved 2026-10-13.