LAAPFF 2016 Goes “Interactive” in Little Tokyo

This April, place-based collaborative FORM follows FUNCTION (FfF) joins Visual Communications in unveiling a spatial, interactive multi-media presentation that celebrates the diverse histories and viewpoints that make up the downtown Los Angeles community, Little Tokyo. Using virtual reality (VR) storytelling techniques and historic site-specific projection, FfF Interactive Little Tokyo! aims to bring new interest on Little Tokyo’s rich legacy, stories of which are often overlooked.

The project will tell spatial stories through immersive technologies intended to broaden perceptions of the Little Tokyo neighborhood. The first installation, 312 Azusa Street, will be a site-specific video map projection in Little Tokyo. The public exhibition will be located in the JACCC Plaza, adjacent to Azusa Alley, the original site of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) and birthplace of Pentecostalism. Audiences will experience the piece as it is projected on the land originally owned by Bridget “Biddy” Mason, former slave, FAME Church Founder, and one of the first African American women to purchase land in Los Angeles.

The second installation will be a VR documentary viewable via VR headsets on a mobile kiosk throughout various locations of the festival. The short documentary, Walking with Grace, will highlight places and streets of Little Tokyo through the perspective of Grace Chikui, a blind woman and long-time resident.

Both exhibitions will be presented in April 2016 at the 32nd Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; it will be a first-time VR presentation for the Film Festival, and will be the launch of a new VR doc series for FfF focusing on women’s perspectives of places.

This presentation is powered by FfF Interactive, an initiative aimed to use immersive technology to highlight the history of neighborhoods through local perspectives in experiential ways.

For more information and to support this project please visit: fffmedia.com.