Colorful light installation aims to brighten downtown San Jose’s future

"Dream Club Lab" brings activity to a vacant storefront as part of a new downtown lighting initiative.

One night a few weeks ago, artists Elaine Buckholtz and Ian Winters were up very late working on “Dream Club Lab” — their light and video installation inside a long-vacant storefront in downtown San Jose — when they got a bit of a surprise.

While downtown has been pretty quiet since they started, there suddenly was a line of people outside the window, checking out the installation-in-progress as they waited to get into the Loft Bar & Bistro next door. Winters said he was worried the crowd might be turned off by the artistic lighting they were testing, but passersby cheered the work.

“It’s been good to get that kind of welcome,” Winters said at an opening reception for the new installation at 72 S. Second Street.

“Dream Club Lab” — with its shimmering lights and sounds you can hear if you lean up against the windows — evokes a fantasy techno club, maybe filled with people that you just can’t see. And it’s the most exclusive club in town, since you can’t actually go inside — it’s meant to be experienced from the sidewalk. It’s visible all the time, but on Thursday through Sunday nights when more people are downtown, people can see special video effects and robots dancing through the 9,000-square foot space, which has been vacant since it was built 20 years ago.

Alex Stettinski, CEO of the San Jose Downtown Association, which commissioned the piece, said he hopes the installation adds vibrancy to downtown during its short four-month run and maybe attracts a tenant who can visualize the potential of the space between the Improv and the Loft. “This isn’t permanent, but it was never meant to be permanent,” he said. “It’s meant to draw some attention to these spaces and add life to the street.”

It’s also the first project in a downtown lighting plan initiative to create more activations that support the booming nightlife scene, make it easier to navigate downtown on foot and, quite frankly, make people feel safer by eliminating dark stretches between businesses.

Both Buckholtz and Winters, who have been collaborating as Nighthouse Studio since 2006, said they had a very positive experience working in downtown San Jose. “I personally am now a fan in the city,” Buckholtz said. “There are so many really cool places to go.”

Winters said he wants viewers to decide for themselves what “Dream Club Lab” means to them, but he dropped some hints about the name.

“Dreams in many cases are precursors to reality. They aren’t reality, but without dreams, your reality is going to be pretty barren. Your reality is going to be this before any of this was here — an empty concrete shell,” he said. “We’re thinking about this as a portal. It’s a way station for things to come into being.”

SJSU REMEMBERS: San Jose State will host a Day of Remembrance at the Hammer Theatre Center on Monday, commemorating the Feb. 19, 1942 signing of Executive Order 9066, which forced the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. That order continues to resonate at the SJSU campus, as its men’s gym was a processing center for the Japanese American community in this area — including then-10-year-old Norm Mineta, who later served as mayor and U.S. Transportation Secretary. In a fitting turnaround, the building is now Uchida Hall, named for the legendary judo coach, Yosh Uchida.

The events on Monday begin at 10 a.m. with a screening of the short film “Nisei,” followed by a panel discussion with Spartan Film Studios’ Barnaby Dallas and Nick Martinez, student Jake Shimada and Carolyn Thomas from the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. That will be followed by a noon program featuring San Jose Taiko and speakers from the city and the university addressing the importance of the day and a panel discussion on the “Never Again is Now!” mural project with mural project convener Nina Chuang; Susan Hayase of San Jose Nikkei Resisters; Asian American Studies Professor Yvonne Kwan and SJSU Director of Advocacy and Community Relations Edwin Tan.

The day will conclude with an art walk with stops at Ruth Asawa’s Japanese Internment Memorial and Uchida Hall.

MUSEUM GOES BACK TO THE ’50S: The Los Altos History Museum is continuing on its series of time-traveling fundraisers with next month’s “Dancing through the Decades: The Nifty ’50s.” Executive Director Elisabeth Ward said that while the previous fundraisers celebrating the 1920s and 1960s touched on the elegance of those decades, the museum is aiming for a bit more fun going back to the years of greasers and poodle skirts. And, she added, it’s very fitting since the 1950s are when Los Altos and Los Altos Hills were both incorporated.

The March 23 event — headed by a volunteer committee led by led by Pilar Parducci and Jung Yoon — will include fun artifacts from the era and memories of days filled with TV dinners, cruising El Camino Real and stopping by Clint’s Ice Cream with its big ice cream cone on the building’s roof. Belmont’s Heirloom Catering Co. is preparing the dinner, but it remains to be seen if they’ll opt for a 1950s menu. Tickets are $195 a person until Feb. 23 when prices go up to $235. Need more info? It’s at losaltoshistory.org.

DESIGNS ON THE FAIR: The 80th Santa Clara County Fair will take place this summer, and the celebration includes a poster contest open to young artists and designers. The theme of this year’s fair, which runs July 25-28 and continues Aug. 1-4, is “From the Fields to the Future,” and posters should illustrate how the valley has evolved from its agricultural origins to the tech-based region surrounding us today.

As an incentive, entrants get two free tickets to the Fair. Rules on how schools, classes and individuals can participate and get their posters in before the May 15 deadline are available at bit.ly/3wit6nc. Personally, I’m hoping that “The Cheery Farmer,” the longtime Santa Clara County Fair mascot with a long yellow coat and corncob pipe, makes a return on some of those posters.

SOUNDS OF ITALY: Italian tenor Pasquale Esposito will join the San Jose Wind Symphony for its concert on Feb. 25 in Saratoga. Esposito’s voice will come in handy as the symphony, led by David Vickerman, explores the world of Italian opera, with selections from “Tosca,” “Rigoletto,” “La Boheme,” and “Pagliacci.” The 3 p.m. concert at the McAfee Performing Arts Center will also include Ottorino Resphigi’s classic, “Pines of Rome,” which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Get tickets and more information at www.sjws.org.