Without any ado I link here a wokwi of a taillight program which uses no data but instead places the focus on algorithmic determination of the pixel values.
At a huge loss of generality, yes. But looking at the video you posted made the whole project click different. The bit encoding of the sensors can be exploited - there is not much going on there when you look at it from a functional spec point of view, which is what your video finally provided.
Sadly my idea of fun on a rainy Sunday morning.
This thing could be squeezed onto an ATtiny, good thing I do not have any around. 
LL&P
a7