The Temple of Together was created for Burning Man 2024.  It was designed by Caroline Ghosn and was built by a couple of hundred people - one of the finest crews I've ever worked with.

I contacted Caroline about doing computer controlled lighting for the central spire.  After a short conversation, we realized we were perfectly in sync as far as what we wanted to see for the temple's lighting.  The next thing I knew I was listed on some document as the Lighting Lead!

So I did supervise and coordinate the lighting efforts overall, but I hardly did all the work or all the design!  The work nicely delegated into large areas that were run by others.  It worked out splendidly.

I did the work I set out to do:  Computer-controlled lighting in the central spire.  This was implemented with 10 LED controllers each driving 8 LED strips, all controlled by an iPad running LED Lab.  The animations ended up being more subtle than I thought they would.  Caroline wanted a general sense of lifting up without being distracting.  I think we succeeded in creating this!

I also ended up creating something I hadn't intended to do:  When I saw the 30' tall hands getting built with the fingertips nearly touching, I had the idea of putting a spark in that 6" gap.  I used a 50W hallide light meant for automobiles.  It made lovely crisp shadows.  I'm so happy that Caroline liked the idea!  The electrical crew decided to leave it powered during the burn.  You can see it in the burn photos here.