Michael Stiller
Education
BA, Bard CollegeBiography
Michael Stiller is a lighting designer, interactive technologist, and teacher whose work over the past 35 years has spanned the worlds of performing arts, television, film, architecture, and experiential environments.
Stiller began his career in 1984 in New York’s vibrant dance and performance community, creating physical and projected artworks for live event-based performances. In the 1990s he embarked on a professional career as lighting designer for a wide range of projects, including film and television, and eventually synthesized these multidisciplinary interests to develop a practice focused on architecturally-based experiential environments and exhibits.
Stiller's lighting designs are represented in the corporate, exhibit, retail, hospitality, and municipal markets. His theatrical designs have been produced in dozens of international venues ranging from raw industrial spaces to classical opera houses, state theaters, arenas, and on Broadway. His work for camera has appeared in major motion pictures and on network television. In 1998, Stiller founded Michael Stiller Design, where he directed a versatile team of designers, project managers, and programmers until merging his practice with UpLIGHT in 2015. He made his Broadway debut last spring, as production designer for the rock/classical mashup Rocktopia.
Stiller is the recipient of a LIT Award and an IESNYC Lumen Award for his work on Sensing Change, a public space artwork in Chicago. He won two IES Illumination Merit Awards for his work designing the experiences at 85 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan and 151 North Franklin Street in Chicago. He also won a Bessie Award for his lighting design of Neil Greenberg’s Not-About-AIDS-Dance.
In addition to serving as an FIT faculty member, he is the author of a textbook, Quality Lighting for High Performance Buildings, and he frequently delivers talks to professional groups on lighting, wellness, and sustainability.