I'm Will, a Deaf artist and engineer, and this summer I'm building "Can You Read My Lips?", a 15-foot billboard for Burning Man, glowing with 1,531 individually-addressable LEDs bright enough to read from afar.

Five rows ask the same question Deaf people get asked our whole lives:

CAN YOU READ MY LIPS?

And the sixth row turns it around:

CAN YOU READ MY HANDS?

All while a pair of red lips animates across the face, mouthing the words, daring you to keep up.

"Can you read my lips?" is the hearing world's default: the easy assumption that skips the work and puts it all on us. Even the best lipreaders catch maybe a third of what's said, and the rest is the Deaf person filling the gaps. So why not learn a little sign language to make our days brighter?

This year will be my tenth time going to Black Rock City, but this is the first time I'm putting art on the open playa! It's the result of years of asking myself "what do I want to do next for Burning Man".

Where the money goes: straight into materials. Aluminum composite panels, the 1,531 LED dome pixels and their power, batteries, the guyed frame and anchors that make sure the billboard stays put and doesn't harm people in unpredictable weather, and the controller that drives it all.

Gifting is one of the ten principles of Burning Man: a gift is unconditional, given freely with nothing expected in return. This project is my gift to the playa, shared for a week and then taken home without a trace. It's mostly self-funded, and I've set a $5,000 goal toward materials. That won't cover the whole build, so anything you can give, and anything past the goal, helps more than you'd think. If it lands with you, light a pixel!

And if money's tight, no worries at all. I'll have stickers to give away, on playa or off, a little something from me, whether or not you donate. Just find me. Either way, the biggest help you can offer is to share this link and let the word travel.

You can follow the build on my blog, That Deaf Developer, and see what the project is all about on my website.