Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian is a London-based designer, artist and filmmaker of Armenian and Algerian descent.[1] She serves on the Advisory Council of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and is the designer of experiences at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute).[2][3] She is also an exhibitor and keynote speaker who has worked with museums and design centres across the world.
In 2013, Icon Magazine nominated Ben Hayoun-Stépanian as one of the 50 international designers “shaping the future”.[7][8]
In 2014, Wired Magazine awarded her a WIRED Innovation fellowship for her work and for its potential to make a “significant impact on the world”.[9]
In 2015, she was nominated for a Women of the Year Achievement Award. Since 1955, the award has recognized women 'who have made a significant achievement' and 'are being recognised for their strides in making the world a better place'.[10]
Also in 2015, she released her feature film Disaster Playground,[11] based on an investigation of emergency procedures for disasters such as earth-bound rogue asteroids.
In 2016, she began work on her next project, a feature film, digital platform and exhibition entitled “The Life, the Sea and the Space Viking”.
In 2017, Ben Hayoun launched the University of the Underground, a tuition-free postgraduate university providing a Master in Design of Experiences degree, and based in underground urban spaces in London and Amsterdam. Supporting unconventional and pluralistic research practices, it is a free, pluralistic and transnational university based in the basements of nightclubs. It actively works with institutions and nightlife to modify power structures through events, engineering situations and experiences from within, whilst supporting and empowering countercultures long-term.[12] For this, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian was appointed "Ambassador for the Underground" by the independent self-declared artist republic Užupis in 2019.
In 2019, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian released her feature film I am (not) a Monster[13] where, armed with puppets and dressed as Hannah Arendt, she teases great thinkers of our age whilst challenging them to an impossible pursuit: to find the origins of knowledge. For the film, and for advocating pluralistic thinking and thinking in action, she was appointed a fellow of the Hannah Arendt center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College.[14]
In 2020, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian became a grantee of the Sundance Institute with Red Moon, her new documentary currently in production.[15] Through role-play, magic and doppelgängers, it offers an experimental vision and template for future diasporas beyond Earth. Set in Algeria, Armenia and France, the film asks, "How will human inhabitants of the moon understand origin, borders and nations?" Ben Hayoun-Stépanian also investigates her family origins in Algeria and Armenia, which led to the start of Nelly Boum Show, her radio show on underground radio's Worldwide FM.[16] Every month, the show explores a theme in a multiverse of possible new futures, touching on economy, politics, and other systems through music and conversation, including a focus on North African and caucasian music and experts.[17]
In 2020, Ben Hayoun took the artist name Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian. She is now represented by former MET Museum curator Beatrice Galilee.[18]
Ben Hayoun is a member of the International Astronautical Federation and the Space Outreach and Education committee,[19] and is vice-chair of the Committee for the Cultural Utilisation of Space (ITACCUS) at the International Astronautical Federation.[20]
Ben Hayoun was appointed Designer of Experiences at the SETI Institute under the supervision of David Morrison, Jill Tarter, Franck Marchis and Frank Drake in May 2013.[2] Her work at SETI focuses on extending outreach activities and design in terms of scope, scale, and methods of engagement towards architecture, installations, environments, social system, performances, experiences and narratives, as events.
Extreme fieldwork
Ben Hayoun speaks about the value of ‘extreme’ fieldwork which she considers an essential part of designer training. For Ben Hayoun, designing experiences implies tangibility, hence fieldwork, and working collaboratively with experts.[27] Ben Hayoun’s design practice brought her investigation to the empty lands of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the Large Hadron Collider, CERN situated 100m below ground.[28] She has also collided atoms at SLAC, trapped herself in a Soyuz rocket capsule in Baikonur Cosmodrome,[29] and experienced a sonic Booum in the neutrino Observatory Super Kamiokande[30] in Japan.
About her practice she said: "My working method is to go in situ in scientists’ research centres and design events that radically change and adapt their attitudes to their research to a non-scientific audience’s creative needs. Design should be embedded in a physical experience, it should be something you remember like seeing a painting and remembering the tone of it."[31]
Director of the International Space Orchestra (ISO)
Alongside her role as designer of experiences at the SETI Institute, Ben Hayoun is directing the International Space Orchestra. The International Space Orchestra is a project she created and assembled over the summer of 2012. It is composed of a team of space scientists from the NASA Ames Research Center, SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Life), Singularity University, and the International Space University.[32][33]
In January 2013, the International Space Orchestra feature film had its world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival where it was acclaimed as a "masterpiece" by the Independent Cinema Office (ICO),[34] a "real achievement" (DOMUS),[35] "as thrilling as watching a rocket launch" and "Spine Tingling" (The Guardian).
On September 24, 2016, the International Space Orchestra opened for the Icelandic group Sigur Rós, playing the Sigur Rós songs Vidrar, Olsen Olsen, Hoppipola and Hafsol (orchestrated and conducted by Gordon Lustig) to a sold-out audience of 17,500[36] at the Hollywood Bowl. After their set, members of ISO also performed outreach[37] as "Space Vikings" to members of the audience, educating the audience on space research related topics.
In November 2016, the International Space Orchestra recorded[38][39] tracks at 25th Street Recording in Oakland, California to celebrate their recent collaborations with rock band Savages and Icelandic group Sigur Rós.
On 19 November 2013, these ArduSat got released from the International Space Station by the six-member Expedition 38 crew. The orbiting residents worked with mission controllers around the world on deploying the ArduSat from Kibo’s airlock Tuesday 19 at 7:10 a.m. EST.[40]
In 2015, Nelly Ben Hayoun released her feature film Disaster Playground. The film is based on an investigation of emergency procedures for disasters such as earth-bound rogue asteroids. The film includes an original soundtrack featuring electronic music label Ed Banger Records and The Prodigy and also features an orchestration by the International Space Orchestra. The film's world Premiere took place at SXSW,[43] and Sheffield Doc/Fest.[44] Disaster Playground is a large multi-platform project with a number of components including a feature film, a digital platform and an exhibition. It was one of Indiewire's six highlights[45] of SXSW in 2015 and was selected as part of the visions category. Senior Curator at MOMA, Paola Antonelli reviewed the film, saying ‘It’s Dr. Strangelove meets This Is Spinal Tap. You straddle a big red phone and go on a wild ride along a chain of command that is complex and exhilarating.’[46]
The film was also screened at the BFI[47] in London, in June 2015.
The Life, The Sea & The Space Viking
In 2016, Nelly Ben Hayoun began work on her next project: feature film, digital platform and exhibition entitled “The Life, the Sea and the Space Viking”.[citation needed] Described as a ‘Space Odyssey and Viking Saga 11km under the sea’,[citation needed] the picture will attempt to herald a submersible expedition and in turn an encounter with ‘biological archeology’. Merging the fields of astrobiology, terraforming and the research of extremophiles, the project features leading scientists at NASA and the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute documenting how minute life on Earth can inform colonization across distant planets
Head of Experiences at WeTransfer
In December 2013, Nelly Ben Hayoun announced her collaboration with file sharing service, WeTransfer.[48] Every week WeTransfer features an entry from Ben Hayoun’s visual diary, documenting her experiential practices and collaborations.[49][50]
About the collaboration she said:
"WeTransfer's 18 million monthly active users will be able to experience the places I go, the activities I do and the people I meet. Each entry will be numbered so people can follow the diaries as they are published," This will extend into a further storytelling platform that will incorporate the service's app, she explains. "I have my practice, which is all about bringing the scientific and creative communities together through carefully designed experiences, and ultimately WeTransfer is about creating unique experiences for their community of digital users."[51]
Director University of the Underground
Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun is the director of The University of the Underground, a tuition free postgraduate university hosted at the Sandberg Instituut[52] and located in the 'underground, within a hidden network of urban spaces', under nightclubs Village Underground[53] in London and De Marktkantine in Amsterdam. It provides an accredited Master of the Arts (MA Design of Experiences)[54] which 'exists at the nexus between critical design, experiential, theatrical, filmic, semiotics, political and musical practices'; and which ' aims to teach students how to engineer situations, to design experiences and events to best support social dreaming, social actions and power shifts within institutions, companies and governments'.[55]
The Sandberg's Instituut is the postgraduate programme of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The University of the Underground is established as a foundation in Amsterdam, composed of a multidisciplinary team as part of its advisory board, guest tutors and teaching team. The University of the Underground responds to the current trend of increased fees for postgraduate programmes by firstly proposing a model in which students are provided with scholarships to cover their tuition fees.[56] The University of the Underground is providing students with scholarships, through public and private donations, to cover their tuitions and members of the public with series of live events, podcasts and experimental editorial content. Dr. Ben Hayoun said " We are committed to making all our finances public and we are transparent in this process"[57]
2009 Winner – Royal College of Art Society prize, UK; the criteria are for a work that shows exceptional skill and innovation in a particular discipline, and is critical and challenging across the area of art and design
