Neon Sprawl is an interactive projected installation I created for City Lights San Diego, an immersive art experience held in the East Village. Inspired by the atmosphere of city nights and the glow of neon lights, the piece invites visitors to step into a luminous urban dreamscape where motion and light converge.

At its core, Neon Sprawl is a kinetic reflection of San Diego itself. I collected symbols from across the city—signage, architecture, local iconography—and algorithmically wove them together into a shifting tapestry. As visitors move in front of the projection, their silhouette becomes part of the city’s rhythm, activating light, triggering patterns, and expanding or collapsing clusters of symbols like buildings forming and reforming in real time.

Neon Sprawl unfolds in a continuous loop of four distinct visual modes, each lasting 90 seconds. Like chapters in a city’s dream, these modes pulse with unique aesthetic logic—from glitchy reflections to organic symbol swarms—offering shifting emotional textures as the cityscape responds to the viewer’s presence. The transitions are seamless, inviting repeated exploration and new encounters each cycle.

The installation uses an Orbbec stereo vision camera to track body movement in front of the screen. Those movements are interpreted in TouchDesigner, where I built a custom system of real-time shaders and procedural networks that control the visuals. Each gesture becomes a spark that reshapes the sprawl—triggering shifts in density, motion, and illumination across a symbol-filled canvas.

The goal was to create a space that felt alive with urban energy—dense, chaotic, and luminous, but also deeply personal. Every visitor reshapes the city in their own way, just by being present.

City Lights San Diego transformed Quartyard into a celebration of light and sound during the winter season. Neon Sprawl was part of a series of installations exploring facets of city life, with my piece representing the dense nighttime energy and cultural layers of San Diego's streets.

This piece was an exploration of urban identity through interactivity. By using city-specific symbols and a visual language reminiscent of neon, I wanted to capture the way cities glow with both collective and individual stories after dark.

City Lights - San Diego is a creation by Ben Guerrette in collaboration with Quartyard SD, and I'm grateful to have been invited to participate.

Event photos by Erica Joan