Nelly Ben Hayoun


Nelly Ben Hayoun is a French designer. Born in Valence, Drôme, France, Ben Hayoun now resides in London, United Kingdom. An award-winning director and experience designer, she works with scientists and engineers to devise events and experiences. She serves on the Advisory Council of METI. Ben Hayoun is also an exhibitor and keynote speaker who has worked with museums and design centres across the world.
Ben Hayoun collaborated with Sigur Rós, Savages, The Prodigy, Beck, Bobby Womack, Damon Albarn, Maywa Denki, Bruce Sterling and Penguin Café in a musical collaboration that took music into space. Launched from a Japanese launch pad in August 2013, she assembled the International Space Orchestra – the world first orchestra of space scientists from NASA Ames Research Center, Singularity University, International Space University and the SETI Institute.
In 2013, Icon Magazine nominated Ben Hayoun as one of the 50 international designers “shaping the future”.
In 2014, Wired Magazine awarded Nelly Ben Hayoun a WIRED Innovation fellowship for her work to date and for its potential to make a “significant impact on the world”.
In 2015, 'Ben Hayoun was nominated for a Women of the Year Achievement Award which rewards, since 1955, women 'who have made a significant achievement' and 'are being recognised for their strides in making the world a better place'.
Also 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.
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”.
In 2017, Ben Hayoun has launched with academic partner the Sandberg Instituut, the , a tuition-free postgraduate university providing Master in Design of Experiences and based in the underground of the urban spaces in London and Amsterdam. It is set to support unconventional research practices. For this Ben Hayoun was appointed as "Ambassador for the Underground" by the independent self-declared artist republic Užupis in 2019.
Ben Hayoun is a member of the International Astronautical Federation, Space Outreach and Education committee.

Background

Ben Hayoun is a visiting professor at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art. She was a senior a lecturer and researcher at where she won the CSM University of the Arts Teaching Award in 2016.
Ben Hayoun is a contributing writer at Domus and Design Indaba and guest writer at We Make Money Not Art, Blueprint and Bruce Sterling’s blog "Beyond the Beyond" on Wired.
Ben Hayoun initially trained in painting then Textile Design at Olivier de Serres National College of Art and Design in Paris and then graduated from Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. She holds a PhD in Human Geography and Political Philosophy from Royal Holloway, University of London, UK under the supervision of Professor Harriet Hawkins.

Designer of Experiences at SETI Institute

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. 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. 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. She has also collided atoms at SLAC, trapped herself in a Soyuz rocket capsule in Baikonur Cosmodrome, and experienced a sonic Booum in the neutrino Observatory Super Kamiokande 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."

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, Singularity University, and the International Space University.
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, a "real achievement", "as thrilling as watching a rocket launch" and "Spine Tingling".
On April 19, 2016, the International Space Orchestra performed at the historic Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, with the all-female British rock group the Savages.
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 to a sold-out audience of 17,500 at the Hollywood Bowl. After their set, members of ISO also performed outreach as "Space Vikings" to members of the audience, educating the audience on space research related topics.
In November 2016, the International Space Orchestra recorded tracks at 25th Street Recording in Oakland, California to celebrate their recent collaborations with rock band Savages and Icelandic group Sigur Rós.

Launch in space

Ben Hayoun's work Ground Control: An Opera in Space, performance recordings by the International Space Orchestra was released from the International Space Station in November, 2013.
On 4 August 2013, two ArduSat carrying the ISO recordings of Ground Control: An Opera in Space were launched aboard the H-IIB Launch Vehicle, HTV-4 from Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Tanegashima Space Centre.
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.
The recordings of Ground Control: An Opera in Space was recorded at Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas' studio, where Star Wars was developed.

Director of the Disaster Playground

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, and Sheffield Doc/Fest. 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 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.’
The film was also screened at the BFI 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”. Described as a ‘Space Odyssey and Viking Saga 11km under the sea’, 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 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. Every week WeTransfer features an entry from Ben Hayoun’s visual diary, documenting her experiential practices and collaborations.
About the collaboration she said:

Director University of the Underground

Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun is the director of , a tuition free postgraduate university hosted at the and located in the 'underground, within a hidden network of urban spaces', under nightclubs in London and in Amsterdam. It provides an accredited Master of the Arts 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'.
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. 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"
Some of the University of the Underground's Advisory Board Members include political activist Prof. Noam Chomsky, MOMA curator Paola Antonelli, author Dave Eggers, Ted Prize winner and SETI scientist Dr. Jill Tarter. Guest Tutors include graphic Designer Paula Scher, science fiction author Bruce Sterling, experimental architect Prof. Rachel Armstrong, blogger Regine Debatty, poet Dana Gioia, sociologist Emma Dabiri and Michael Bierut among others.

Lectures, talks and speeches

Ben Hayoun has delivered keynote lectures in many countries on design and teaching design, experience design and space public outreach.