Where Sound and Light Meet: ‘City Lights’ Brings Art of New Age

A place where light, sound, and culture intertwine is coming to East Village’s Quartyard this winter.

“City Lights” highlights the city of San Diego when the sun goes down, offering varying lights throughout the night and sounds of the city nightlife, according to Ben Guerrette, the City Lights co-producer, creative director, and contributor.

“‘City Lights’ can be interpreted in many different ways; we wanted to keep it broad for artists to work off of,” Guerrette said. “How does lighting in the city change as the sun is going down, and street lights and apartment buildings are turning off and on? … and how it changes as we move to sunrise.”

The theme’s interpretation is left to the local artists contributing to the installation, he said.

The installation is a 50-minute walkable route through roughly six zones, featuring interactive projections, a “laser garden” and LED sculptures, with three of them incorporating sound, according to Guerrette.

The experience is intended to be “edgy” and have an “adult vibe,” he said. The idea is to create an energy based off San Diego while also incorporating a 1990s rave-type of scene.

The music in two of the sculptures will be “relaxing” to “ease people into this experience,” he said.

The experience will lean into the realm of techno music design and city transit, he said, creating an original sound to tell a story.

The third piece, will be the biggest of them all. Taking place on stage, including projections and stage lighting, this experience will “give a nod to the electronic music space of the 90s … to the history of the different genres as it was exploding” in that decade, Guerrette said.

Guerrette and Justin Navalle, Quartyard’s managing partner, are working with roughly seven local artists, sound designers, and projection and light artists.

The goal is to best support local creatives in the process of showcasing their work, Guerrette said.

This is the first time Quartyard is hosting an event like this, according to Navalle. Quartyard is celebrating their ten-year anniversary in April 2025 and wanted to do something that would “wow” people, he said.

“We tried to push the envelope of what Quartyard can be,” he said. “With this immersive strategy, it’s going to be the first long term creative pop-up we’ve done. It felt like a good time to rechallenge ourselves after being in business for so long.”

Navalle first met Guerrette at Tecture, an architectural firm, more than a year ago. There, he was impressed by Guerrette’s unique LED reactive sculptures and knew he wanted to do business with him down the road, Navalle said.

After meeting, the two planned on creating an immersive structure that occupied the whole venue and came up with the same name in their own brainstorming, according to Navalle.

“We had this shared vision of what we could create,” he said. “To take people from the ordinary and bring them into something special for an hour.”

“We looked at each other, and said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.'”

Growing up in the 1990s, Guerrette spent time in the rave and DJ scene, where he found a passion for projection art, which combined music and light. Making his way from his home in Connecticut to Los Angeles, he found a community that shared the same passion.

After a few years, he found himself in LED art for concerts and stage lighting.

“Combining all these elements [stage lighting, projection and LEDs] together to produce immersive experiences that have sounds in a light show and stories to go with them,” he said.

“Visuals and music by itself is super interesting, and they’re both very powerful,” he said. “But when you combine them, there’s a multiplying effect that’s 100 times more visceral than just each one on its own.”

The hope for this event is that guests will experience a new kind of art in visual-audio installations.

“I want to excite people; I want to show them something they haven’t experienced before,” Guerrette said. “It’s a family friendly thing, and I want to elevate the local artists who do unique and immersive art and sound experiences that don’t get as much exposure as they deserve.”

“City Lights” will open Dec. 6, running Thursday-Sunday until Jan. 19. It’s open to all ages, and there will be bar and cocktail lists available. Tickets are $20 for adults and discounts are available for children and students.