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Do you know how much petroleum you use on a daily basis? Or the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, emitted by a cow in its lifetime?

Lighting design students at the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem worked for months to create digital images that translate the mind-numbing statistics about the world's growing human population and consumption of natural resources into something regular folks could understand.

The class will project those images onto the brick facade of the Pepper Building in a free public art demonstration running tonight through Saturday.

The second annual Winston-Salem Light Project aims to stimulate discussion about pressing environmental issues while spotlighting the talents of people who work in an often underappreciated field.

The presentation also coincides with the city's "6 Days in November" arts and crafts celebration.

"We definitely decided at the beginning that we don't want to be depressing," said Rob Ross, a fourth-year student from Vienna, Va. "We do want people to leave in an upbeat and happy mood. We want people to leave thinking about what they can do."

The light project previously drew crowds to the Millennium Center where students projected stylistic color images onto the front facade and columns. This year, the class chose a different building and the topic of current affairs, namely the undertaking of the 2010 federal census and estimates of a 7 billion world population.

"We live on a planet of finite resources, and we are 7 billion people and growing," said Norman Coates, director of the school's lighting program. "How are we going to deal with that?"

Coates discovered this year's urban brick-and-mortar canvas while riding his Vespa scooter down Fourth Street. The six-story Pepper building is tall enough to accommodate 60-foot digital images that will show on an exterior wall facing Fourth Street.

"Part of this is that actual surrealism of walking down Fourth Street and from a block away being able to see this and seeing images so out of place with downtown that you'll be drawn to it and hopefully drawn to what it's saying," Coates said.

The light show is funded by grants from Wachovia and the local arts council and uses expensive, large-format projectors. Production companies sometimes use the equipment to add temporary scenery elements to a live play or concert.

However, the public often doesn't understand the role of lighting, even though an audience can't watch a performance without it, Ross said.

"This is the one thing that we do that doesn't involve any other aspect (of production)," Ross said about this month's show. "It gives us the opportunity to show people what we really do."

Contact Morgan Josey Glover at 373-7078 or morgan.josey@news-record.com