Tarna Lighting & Electrical

Building a Dusty Dream

When I got approached to design the lighting for an enormous truck-sized steel jackalope, I just had to say yes!

As the components that needed power added up to almost 7kW, I soon realised this was going to be a bigger job than just lighting, so I also took on the role of designing the power, data, and audio distribution for the art car.

This was the biggest project I'd taken on yet, but with the support and collaboration of the incredible Tarna team, we created an art project that brought together a whole community and delights people to this day.

Ask me about Tarna

Before going down this rabbit hole (pun intended) too much further, why not drop me a line and ask me questions about Tarna, or even how you can get involved, I'd love to hear from you!

Clouds & Lighting

I took the concept artwork and landed on the idea of a heavily diffused LED matrix that could replicate swirling cloud patterns. Partnering with @troy_ess's incredible fabrication skills, the clouds were one of the first parts of Tarna completed.

We quickly realised we tchnically have video screens in the clouds, which unlocked all kinds of potential for fun patterns. This has made them very appealing for other event organisers to rent out as stand-alone art pieces.

Each cloud can run stand-alone, be linked as a mapped group, and sync with other event lighting via sACN.

In order to comply with Burning Man vehicle regulations, I also designed tube lights to illuminate the edges of the vehicle, and added various other practical lighting for safety. It's all addressable, and can all run in sync to give not only a safe, but fun show!

Original concept art
by Tarna's Creative Director, Jordan St. Claire

The finished art car
Photo by awesomephotography.ca

The clouds on stage for an event
Photo by @troy_ess

Power & Wiring

Powering Big Art

Running a huge sound system, propane tank heaters, and a good amount of lighting soon adds up on power requirements.

I quickly realised we would need a way to provide power to all 7kW(!) of equipment safely.

After gathering all the power consumption requirements, I designed a distribution system for the art car, for not only power, but also audio and data wiring as well.

Partnering with the amazing build team, we were able to run conduit to over 30 outlet boxes of various types across the vehicle, all run back to a central patch/breaker/distribution point inside the vehicle.

This means it's now super easy to hook speakers and lights up to an outlet right by their location, and redundant wiring runs allow for backups when inevitably needed.

Photo by Andrea Shehara

Tech Specs

4x QSC speaker tops
4x QSC subs
4x 500W propane tank heaters
4x Addressable LED clouds
6x Addressable LED tubes
4x Addressable LED lanterns
Misc practical lighting
32 outlet boxes (power / data / audio)
Breaker panel
Data and audio Patch panels
Honda eu7000i generator (and yes, we use it all!)

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