10:15 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
This session shares insights gained from planning and creating content for a large-scale, immersive digital video screen in Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library. Constructed in 2017 in tandem with a new, technology-rich digital commons space, the video wall is a 28-foot-wide, high-definition video screen located in a previously empty and disused area. A dramatic and prominent centerpiece to the library’s atrium, it is immediately visible to the many people who pass through the library every day. Librarians from the newly formed DCT were tasked with crafting a content strategy for the video wall, planning and producing original content, and curating content from a range of sources, including digital artists and filmmakers. Working from a guiding vision of a visual experience that emulates the serendipity of browsing a bookshelf in a library, DCT librarians sought to establish the video wall as a space for immersive digital storytelling and minimizing its use for more conventional promotion of library programs and services. To the greatest extent possible, the DCT has sought to tell a compelling visual story that feels relevant to the general viewer. As the wall approaches its first anniversary, the DCT plans to commission work from emerging artists, including interactive and generative works, and to focus on the development of the video wall as a premier venue for the display of digital art in Los Angeles. In addition to sharing the DCT’s approach to content for their video wall, this session discusses the significance of this being a librarian-directed effort and explores more broadly the rapidly expanding world of immersive displays, digital signage, and narrative architectural lighting as a potential site for librarianship.
