The world inside a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles seemed to stop, and all I saw was a blur of colors, where pinkish red tones mixed with yellow and purple tones. And I was surprised by what I felt: rested but not tired. This was a deep, calming state, in which I was wide awake but unable to focus on a specific thought or worry.
If only for a moment, the worries, loneliness, and to-do lists seemed to pass. Everything I tend to insist on was present but also a little out of my reach. Although I visited a Chromasonic facility in December, when the year 2025 got off to a stressful start (our region was hit by devastating wildfires that have displaced tens of thousands), I was eager to return.
Descriptions of immersive experiences in 2025 may tend to sound like mental health retreats. Many boast the ability to wow participants, stimulate restorative mindfulness, relieve anxiety, or inspire the release of dopamine.
Chromasonic's exhibit in downtown Los Angeles aims to help visitors achieve a state of calm and introspection.
(Chromasonic)
And so it was that I found myself lying on a concrete floor, with a small pillow under my head and translucent vertical slabs surrounding me: aluminum frames with a light, transparent fabric designed to diffuse light. I've set foot in many sound and light installations over the years and am used to being promised something resembling a world of wonder. If all goes well, I'll see otherworldly art and maybe get a chance to play.
And yet, at Chromasonic I didn't want to leave or move, really.
Chromasonic is a newly opened traveling art installation in the city centre. There is also a Chromasonic space in Venice, which opened in 2021 and is a more intimate and solitary area. In the downtown Arts District, the exhibit (Chromasonic Field is its official name) is free to wander around and mingle with other groups, albeit extremely quietly.
I dart in and out of small, square spaces as the slowly changing LED overhead lights make their boundaries seem a little elusive. An ambient soundtrack inspired by Brian Eno adorns the room, audio in which the synthetic and the human intermingle until it is impossible to discern an instrument. The entire area is dedicated to the transitory.
“The interesting thing about Chromasonic is that there is no cultural context for sound or light,” says Susan Magsamen, co-author of “Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.” Magsamen is also a faculty member in the neurology department at Johns Hopkins University, where his academic focus is, in part, the intersection of the arts and mental health.
“You are dislocated,” Magsamen says of a chromasonic work. “It is not dissonant, but it is distant. You are in a suspended space that looks a lot like a womb. There is nothing to hold onto, to make a pattern on. It is not designed with a pattern, but it changes. So one of the things it does is allow the brain to rest because there is nothing to solve.”
The creators of Chromasonic: Harriet Girardoni, standing from left, and Orpheo McCord; Johannes Girardoni, seated from left, and Joel Shearer. The space aims to allow us to hear the light and see the sound.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Chromasonic is the brainchild of four artists. His thesis is located halfway between art and science. When asked about his emotional ambition, Johannes Girardoni, 57, artist co-founder and art director of Chromasonic, speaks of the kind of transcendent experiences most associate with, say, nature or carefully designed community environments: a museum of art, perhaps, or, for some, a theme park.
A chromasonic environment, Girardoni says, is designed to be a kind of fast track to a meditative state.
“It's almost like a trick,” Girardoni says. “Your brain and your senses activate in very different ways because you don't find information, you don't find a normal narrative or a normal reality. Eliminating all that information (normal physical reality) allows us to move towards this new and expanded way of feeling consciousness. I would say it's a very effective way to feel connected to this moment. It is a very internal and reflective experience.”
As for art, there are precedents. In collaboration with fellow installation artist and partner Harriet Girardoni, as well as sound artists and composers Orpheo McCord and Joel Shearer, Chromasonic, at first glance, seems indebted to the work of Los Angeles-born artist James Turrell in the sense that Chromasonic uses light as one of its primary materials. Johannes, who lives in Venice, doesn't shy away from that connection and paraphrases a quote from Turrell about art allowing us to “feel ourselves feeling.”
“What we're doing, specifically, with Chromasonic,” says Johannes, “is understanding that we can increase mindfulness and mental health, as well as reduce stress. It is art at the service of well-being. That is the main objective of our work.”
Chromasonic is an immersive art show in Los Angeles.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
To achieve that goal, the Chromasonic team has been working on ways to convert light to sound and vice versa. Johannes talks about the downtown space eventually hosting live music performances, with the venue's lighting responding in real time to the musicians. They call this process “chromasonic refrequency” and it is an attempt to synchronize light and sound waves, using technology to visualize these frequencies.
Conceptually, it is the belief that we can see sound and hear light. The software, Johannes says, allows the team to witness how light and sound waves expand and contract. Interpreting them can be a more impressionistic practice, but if everything works, Johannes says, a chromasonic space will feel like it's “living and breathing.”
“Red,” says Johannes, “is a long wave and violet is a short wave. You can map that to the sound. A long wave will generate a low sound, if you map it in real time. …When we compose, we have to be careful. If you make too many different sounds, you will get white light very quickly. White light is all frequencies. “It’s largely about reducing stimulus.”
Researcher Magsamen believes the Chromasonic team has discovered something.
“I think this idea of being radically present brings together the other side of the coin with anxiety, depression and fatigue,” Magsamen says. “They're trying to understand what is noise and what is signal.”
The chromasonic field can be felt as a patch of light and sound, a liminal space intended for relaxation.
(Chromasonic)
Once, when I was feeling especially depressed, someone close to me recommended rest. “Rest would be good,” he emphasized, and of course I went to bed, but I tossed and turned and generally did anything but rest. I thought about his advice while lying in Chromasonic, because I think this is the kind of rest he was referring to, one in which concentration and focus were free of the restlessness to which they are often tied.
Because everything here was slightly abstracted: a sonic hum gave way to a hazy mix of lights as I observed various ideas and impressions. I've felt a peace like this before (a trip to Sequoia National Park comes to mind), but what I liked about Chromasonic was that any sense of place felt distorted.
I knew, of course, that I was in the center. And yet, in this liminal space dedicated to emotional drift, I truly felt like I was nowhere.
