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As designers who consciously consider the impact of our work, Michael Grubb Studio were delighted to work with Zurich Insurance Company Ltd on their recent commission to pledge for climate action.

Together, with the fantastic team at m ss ng p eces, a thought-provoking installation has been created to inspire individuals to come together and take action for our planet.

This interactive statue symbolizes a visual language of support with each figure in the installation representing people from around the world joining together by joining elbows for change – a fight everyone can join whether they take big actions or small.

The opening within the installation leaves space for visitors to stand with the other figures and make their pledge for climate change. When an individual takes that step, the installation is illuminated bringing it to life, and shining a light on the pledge.

Our pledge? To consider our carbon footprint in our design work, by re-using products destined for waste. What’s more, we managed a zero-carbon immersive experience collaborating with Stoane Lighting. A huge thank you for working closely with us and supplying a range of products, to make this installation possible. Also, thank you to Xicato!

The installation is candidly named, ‘What can go right?’

Click here to watch the video.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival kicks off, over 800 lanterns lining Lee Tung Avenue are connected with Xicato controls, allowing visitors to create a personalized “Avenue of Lights” using their mobile device. The tree-lined pedestrian walkway to Hong Kong Island is home to sidewalk cafes, gourmet restaurants, and local and overseas fashion outlets. It prides itself on its close connection with local communities, and so it’s fitting that along the 200-meter long esplanade, Xicato has enabled people to engage with the fun and functional work of art.

Part of the “Vivid Sydney: Light, Music & Ideas” festival, Under My Umbrella invites you to dream and dance under a glowing canopy as it sways gently in the wind.”

Each XIM module has its own programming. During show hours, the XIMs are programmed to respond with a unique delay and flashing rate to create the impression that the umbrellas are flashing randomly. When visitors walk underneath the canopy of umbrellas, they trigger a more organized, sequential pattern of light, which times out to a fixed lighting level before timing out again to pseudo-random flashing. This involved programming the sensor state machine in the XIM to track time of day, occupancy, delay times and fade times, and time-out periods, transitioning in highly planned ways between the 4 basic behavioral states.

What Under My Umbrella demonstrates is the power of the XIM distributed intelligence architecture. There was no central controller or hub. No cumbersome DMX wiring. All of the programming is in the lights themselves, which act autonomously in response to the various independent inputs.

Under My Umbrella was created by the Beam Collective, which includes Bettina Easton of E-Lux, Colin Shum of Medland Metropolis Engineering, Grace Tham of HASSELL Studio, and Ales Vasenda of 3S Lighting, with help from Webster Chu of Xicato. It uses 50 XIM Gen4 modules in custom fixtures (the umbrellas), activated by scheduling, 4 motion sensors, and the unique programming features of the XIM.