Carlo Ratti-invented write&erase robot Scribit has teamed up with leading artist Olafur Eliasson's non-profit foundation Little Sun to draw an illustration of the sun’s path in thousands of people’s homes. 

Scribit, a spin-off company of international design and innovation firm CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati that produces smart vertical plotters, has teamed up with leading artist Olafur Eliasson's non-profit Little Sun to bring original drawings into thousands of homes. 

Each illustration is inspired by sun path charts. Collectively, the paintings have the ambition of becoming the world's largest mosaic, scattered across the world.

Scribit–one of 2018's top crowdfunding campaigns–is the world's first write&erase robot that can turn any vertical surface into a low-refresh screen on which to display information from the web, user-generated content and art. Functioning as a "printer for walls," Scribit ushers in a new way of presenting digital content and allows users to instantly personalize a vertical plane.

Part of Scribit's mission to "bring color to your life," the collaboration with Olafur Eliasson's Little Sun inaugurates a series called Scribit Originals, which will bring content by world-known artists, designers, poets, scientists and public intellectuals into people's homes and everyday spaces. 

As part of the project, Scribit users can input a specific date, hour and location into the app connected to the robot, generating a unique representation of the relationship between them and the sun at their chosen place and on their preferred day of the year.

When the robot receives the information, it activates and draws the custom chart on a wall, canvas or other vertical surface. Each sun path chart will be part of something bigger–a visual, collective statement for climate action that reunites and connects people under the same sun. 

The collaboration is a personalized call to action through art and for the future of our planet. Little Sun has long advocated for sustainability, bringing solar lamps to areas with no access to electricity. The collaboration with Scribit aims to amplify the message. 

"Little Sun is a response to our present situation," says Olafur Eliasson. "Energy shortage and unequal energy distribution demand that we reconsider how our life-sustaining systems function. I see Little Sun as a wedge to open up this urgent discussion from the perspective of art, to raise awareness about energy access and the unequal distribution of energy today."

"Paul Valery once said that innovation transforms art, 'thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art," said Carlo Ratti, inventor of the write&erase robot and director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

"We are very happy about this collaboration with Olafur Eliasson's Little Sun, with whom we share the passion for innovation and participatory projects. Scribit aims to narrow the gap between viewer and artist. Through a new kind of Verfremdung, art becomes a dialogue, an exchange, an evolving interaction."

"Little Sun is about bringing sunshine and beauty into people’s lives while raising awareness for the global need for clean energy and climate action," said Felix Hallwachs, Managing Director of the Little Sun Foundation. "We are excited about the collaboration with Scribit, because it is a completely new way of connecting the global community, making the power of the sun tangible for everyone."

"We’re very excited to collaborate with Little Sun," said Andrea Baldereschi, Chief Marketing Officer at Scribit. "We created a piece of art with no boundaries, which will be showcased on thousands of people’s walls at the same time."

The Scribit Originals series is the latest development in CRA's research on open source design and vertical drawing, which began at the 2012 Istanbul Design Biennale and draws inspiration from Werner Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"–about the Chauvet Cave in southern France that contains the oldest human-painted images yet discovered, dating back 32,000 years. Scribit aims to continue our ancestors’ epic journey–expressing ourselves on the canvases that bound our lives. 

Project facts

Scribit Originals #1: was created by Scribit & Little Sun

Scribit is a project by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati in collaboration with Makr Shakr.

Scribit team: Carlo Ratti, Andrea Baldereschi (CMO), Andrea Bulgarelli (CTO), Danilo Ronchi (Developer), Ivan Lunardi (Senior Developer), Matteo Palmieri (UX/UI DESIGNER), Giorgia Ori (Partnership Manager), Svilena Sivova (Community & Event Manager), Federico Morando (Digital Content Specialist)

In collaboration with the Little Sun team.

All images © Federico Morando

> via CRA