According to my book, Leo Villareal by JoAnne Northrup, on page 45, "During the 1996 iteration of Burning Man, Villareal covered his rented camper with reflective plastic to minimize the solar heat. He was suprised to note that this gesture created a stunning illusion--very much like a mirage where the reflection of surroundings creats a kind of camoflaging effect" and continues further down the page, "The following year [1997], Villareal decided to address another practical problem, one that stemmed from the exponential growth of the events attendance: how to find the way back to camp at night...Using 16 strobe lights and a Basic Stamp microcontroller, he constructed his first light pulsation system and mounted it atop his camper on a wooden lattice structure. It turned out to be much more than a simple navigation beacon: it projected sequences that 'expressed a desperate need to communicate in a language that begged to be decoded.'"

and continues to talk about how modified the structure and exhibited it from his New York Studio and worked on several other projects leading up to Disorient in 2001.