Scribit is essentially a high-tech printer for your walls. Courtesy Scribit
Scribit is essentially a high-tech printer for your walls. Courtesy Scribit
Scribit is essentially a high-tech printer for your walls. Courtesy Scribit
Scribit is essentially a high-tech printer for your walls. Courtesy Scribit

Art

Scribit: The drawing robot that can recreate an Ancient Egyptian artwork on your wall

The wall-climbing device (yes, really) has teamed up with an Italian museum to showcase its exhibits

Emma Day
Emma Day

June 11, 2020

  • English
  • Arabic

You may not be able to easily holiday in Italy any time soon, but one collaboration is bringing one of the country's museums exhibits into your home – if you have the cash, that is.

Scribit, a robotic drawing tool, has teamed up with the Museo Egizio in Turin, allowing users to reproduce some of the museum's most famous pieces in their homes.

The "write and erase" device – which essentially works like a technology-powered whiteboard marker will be able to recreate masterpieces from the institution, which specialises in Egyptian art and archaeology.

Scribit, the brainchild of Italian design firm CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, is a wheeled device which can manoeuvre around vertical surfaces to create selected artworks and sketches.

You have to see it in action to believe it:

The tool, which was launched thanks to a 2018 crowd-funding campaign and named one of Time magazine's Best Inventions of the Year in 2019, is, essentially, a printer for walls.

It can be loaded with any pen with a diameter between 1.3 centimetres and 1.5cm, although there are special Scribit pens that can be purchased which are erasable.

Users can upload designs to the device's app and, as of Wednesday, June 10, they will also find an option to recreate a fragment of the sarcophagus of Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh.

The wooden coffin, which sits in the Museo Egizio, is ornately decorated with inscriptions from the Book of the Dead in glass paste. The sarcophagus housed Thot Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh, according to the museum, the brother of high priest Petosiris, who lived in the 4th century BC.

"The project by Scribit aims to support the reopening [of Museo Egizio in June], while at the same time imagining new ways of enjoying and making museum collections more accessible," a statement announcing the collaboration said.

A detail from the sarcophagus of Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh. Courtesy Scribit
A detail from the sarcophagus of Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh. Courtesy Scribit

Scribit does, however, cost more than the price of an admissions ticket to the museum, ringing in at $499.99 (Dh1,835). The device is currently only able to be shipped in the US, Canada, China, Japan, Australia and countries in the European Union.

Scribit is expected to release more artworks from Museo Egizio on its app in the near future.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

Art