The present invention provides a programmable lighting system comprising a plurality of light-emitting elements and a controller responsive to a hierarchically encoded data input stream. The controller determines and provides appropriate control signals for controlling the characteristics of the light generated by the plurality of light-emitting elements operatively coupled thereto. The data input stream may use a DMX512 or other network protocol and can be hierarchically encoded by varying the value of the START code of the data packets. When a DMX512 or other data packet with a NULL START code or "color" packet is received by the controller, the controller interprets the frames to be intensity control data wherein each frame can correspond to a particular light-emitting element or group of light-emitting elements. The color packet can provide data for the generation of a particular temporal color sequence or a temporal color sequence that is random or any other lighting sequence. When a DMX512 or other data packet with a non-NULL START code or "service" packet is received by the controller, the controller can interpret each START code value independently and can assign or modify one or more attributes of the controller, for example, the particular mode of operation, or an address or serial number may be assigned or modified based on the value of the START code.