The goal of this project is to geo-locate historic photographic images of LA's first Chinatown onto the location where they were originally taken and that is now occupied by Union Station. Using the 8thWall mobile AR platform,  historic images from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West are viewed on a visitor's mobile device screen and appear superimposed onto the actual site of the original buildings.   As players move around the station and surrounding area, they retrace the steps of the original photographers and enter portals into 3D street scenes of the original Chinatown community.  The project utilizes VPS wayspots, Arcturus Holostream, generative-AI imagery and video, interlinked 8th Wall projects, and interactive characters using the Inworld 8th Wall module.

Niantic/8thWall award winner: 

Meet the Winners of the Time Capsule Challenge

Credits for Memory Space: Chinatown AR

Funded in part by a Prototyping Grant from the "Digital Projects for the Public" program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  

• Co-PIs:  William Deverell and Scott Fisher

Project & MEML Lab Director

• Scott Fisher

Project Managers

• Tyler White

• Sofia Rodriguez

• Jenny Choi

Lead Developer

• So Sun Park

Lead Designer

• Lesley Moon

Art Director

• Kevin Yin

Character Capture

• Nate Fairchild

Lead Historian

• Ilena Moses

Lead Performers

• Robin Stanton (Peter Soo Hoo)

• Kevin Tai (David Lee)

3D Team

• Hsien-Tung Liao

• Caden Chung

• Xander King

Engineering Team

• Xinyun Liu

• Spencer Lin

• Miru Jun

• Rylan Daniels

Design Team

• Sean Jin

Research Team

• Patrick Waechter

• Sultan Sharrief

Concept Art

• Mo Chuang

In Association with

• Huntington-USC Institute on California & the West

• Chinese Historical Society of Southern California

• Metro Art

• Union Station

• 8th Wall

• Arcturus Studio

• Metastage

Special Thanks

• Masaki Fujihata

• Ewan Johnson, Arcturus Studio

• Ian Curtis, 8th Wall

• Evan Carlson, 8th Wall

• Li Wei Yang, The Huntington

• Linda Bentz, Chinese Historical Society of Southern California

• Eugene Moy, Chinese Historical Society of Southern California