Permanent Residents combines extreme costume design with staged documentation of everyday activities in the urban space of Los Angeles. The costumes point to a collective imaginary world, that consists of the floating signifiers of pop-icons, myths and social fictions. The protagonists of the film communicate in a non-verbal language across spacial distances. Their simultaneous movements at different locations merge into a choreography, which draws our attention to musical and abstract visual aspects in the design of our environment. A portrait of the city's influence onto its residents.