Hunger in LA, a Virtual Reality (VR) experience by Nonny de la Peña, is based on real audio of an incident at a food bank outside a church in Los Angeles: a diabetic man waiting in the queue collapsed when his blood sugar level dropped, and an ambulance had to be called. De la Peña, who coined the term “immersive journalism”, recreated this event in VR, using animated figures to represent the participants.

A flagship moment in the history of VR development, 12 years on this experience still acts as a powerful reminder of the storytelling possibilities of VR and the progress made possible thanks to the work of artists like Nonny de la Peña.

The VR headset will be provided and the duration of the piece is 40 minutes. Multiple dates and time slots are available – please use the link above to book your ticket.

Hunger in LA premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2012 as part of the New Frontier program. The headset used to show the piece was built by a team at the University of Southern California which included Palmer Luckey, who went on to sell his headset company Oculus Rift to Meta (Facebook).