Un enfoque revolucionario con Astera

New York-based lighting designer Christopher Robinson of Revolutionary Lighting is passionate about all things related to illumination. He enjoys experimentation, thinking laterally and outside the box when it comes to finding creative lighting solutions

… and he appreciates how Astera products can assist in this quest for invention.

A lighting professional of some 27 years standing, Chris was lucky enough to land the job as Head of Lighting for one of Broadway’s most acclaimed, successful and highly popular productions – Hamilton – in 2015. From there, he subsequently worked on all the North American productions, touring and resident, of the show up until 2020 when Covid changed everything.

Like many during the pandemic period, Chris worked hard on re-inventing his work-life balance and seized the chance to learn new skills in the world of lighting for streaming and broadcast video, as that was where the lighting opportunities were during this highly uncertain time.

His first Astera purchase was in 2020 – a set of Titan Tubes.

Based amidst the vibrance and hustle of New York, with a wide and diverse network of contacts, he soon found plenty of new, improvised and underground streaming, video and other creative art and community projects popping up … as people worked on being imaginative and staying busy.

The Titan Tubes soon became one of the best investments he’s made, and he learned to light a host of different scenarios with them. For larger projects, he started hiring in more – and different – Astera products, usually from Main Light.

Battery power and portability made Astera an ideal choice for many of these scenarios, but it was more than that.

“I love the quality of Astera light output, the colour mixing and sheer usability of the fixtures anywhere – from the fact that they are battery powered to being able to run them off my phone,” he stated.

Chris started his professional career as a musician – he also plays guitar and sings – and party DJ / VJ, so lighting was a natural technical discipline for him to riff with as a good sense of rhythm is a huge asset.

After purchasing the Titan Tubes in 2020, he was soon lighting an increasing amount of music, art, design, fashion and other interesting performance concepts, building a reputation for providing ingenious lighting ideas for a diversity of shows and events, constantly expanding his client base.

More recently, he has purchased Astera QuikSpots and QuikPunches.

These were an investment made specifically for shows with Miguel Cervantes – the longest-running Hamilton lead for whom he has been working since 2022, lighting corporate shows in a Hudson Yards office tower penthouse … using Titan Tubes.

In 2025, to develop the look for these shows, Chris started renting QuikSpots and QuikPunches from Main Light and decided that he needed to have his own for Miguel and also for a Guitars Over Guns video shoot that he was booked for.

“What convinced me to buy was a show at the Old Navy store in Times Square, where I had to light dancers on platforms, with only a tiny decorative wooden slat available for a rigging point!” Nothing but a lightweight, battery-powered fixture was going to work, and this was the moment he knew the Astera fixtures had to be permanently in his kit.

They've been on almost every job since, demonstrating their huge versatility.

The QuikPunch proved ideal for a job via Brooklyn-based audio-visual production company Devlin’s for Armadillo Luxury Rugs at a Lower East Side industrial space, which needed rugs – installed on the walls – lit, plus an enormous fabric sculpture in the yard, complete with its suspension cables concealed.

Chris’s technical smarts combined with the Astera QuikPunches delivered a great result.

He designed a goal post that was cantilevered over a scenic gallery wall, so a super lightweight fixture was required. Laura Bickford, sales manager at Main Light who is also his account handler, suggested QuikPunch, weighing in at only 14 pounds (just under 7 kg) each, so he hooked seven onto the Unistrut – itself ratchet-strapped to the building structure. The sculpture lighting started at the wall and followed the cascading yarn down onto the floor, which was a substantial area to light, but a task elegantly achieved.

“I could not think of any other fixtures that would have worked so well,” he commented when talking about the Guitars over Guns video, and so QuikSpots and QuikPunches have become his workhorses. “Handy for all sorts of effects like blasting up at the ceiling to get extra fill on people’s faces, etc.”

Another neat application for the power and portability of Astera was a New York Fashion Week event staged at the Olney Gleason Gallery in Chelsea, where Astera fixtures again provided the perfect solution. With no hanging options for lights, Chris obtained a long-threaded rod for attaching his QuikSpots and QuikPunches to the Unistrut in the ceiling, lighting tables and other features around the room.

During the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final, Chris lit an entire room for Diageo with QuikSpots, QuikPunches, Astera AX2-50 and AX2-100 PixelBars, plus a few moving lights to ramp up the party vibes, including highlighting a large football set piece behind the DJ with QuikSpots.

He had not lit molo walls before, but grazing them with vertically mounted AX2s brought stunning results. “It's the same principle as lighting a brick wall from the floor and letting the shadows cascade up the façade,” he stated. The fixtures were mounted vertically so the light travelled horizontally across the texture, which proved perfect for the flat molo walls. The entrance-way ones were all curved, so those were lit with the QuikSpots and QuikPunches.

For Sugar Sugar! – a free, annual outdoor performing arts festival staged at Brooklyn’s Domino Square waterfront amphitheatre – Chris rigged QuikPunches on bespoke mobile towers and wheeled them to the different stages and areas of the park as required.

The towers were made from theatrical base plates with added castors plus a 4 ft stick of truss, one QuikSpot and two QuikPunches, and these provided the primary side light for all stages. “They made sure I could get close to the action wherever that happened to be,” he explained.

He comments that the Astera light sources and the award-winning Titan LED engine are “fantastic” for key lighting and producing great flesh tones, and he also appreciates the zoom as one of the defining features, and in addition to that, “they can be used virtually anywhere,” adding that he looks forward to more opportunities to use Astera in the field.

Photos: photos to Clark Studio, and all others to Chris Robinson.