Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios stand for Total Bombardment. We are the manufacturers of the Impossible. Designers of extreme experiences. Strong believers in social actions, chaos and the performance of politics in institutions.

October has seen us starting at the bottom in the deepest depths of a prehistoric sea, and ending in the outermost reaches of a distant solar system. Oh Yes! The International Space Orchestra have stood on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, performing for 17500 people in LA as a support act for Sigur Rós. This was a mix of electric human kinetic, Space Vikings and a choir of fire courtesy of Prometheus. We also have distributed fortune cookies and limited edition mission patches, traversed the ocean and aimed for the full to the void. Let’s sail across the sunset!
THIS was our month of October in a nutshell.

ISO with Sigur Rós at the Hollywood Bowl!
NBH Studios Look Forward
Nelly Presents The World Over

NBH Studios in the Press
Disaster Playground Screenings
Welcome to the new NBH Studios Team Members!
Patch Competition Winners

ISO with Sigur Rós at the Hollywood Bowl!

ISO and Sigur Ros. Photograph by Aaron Wojack.

ISO at Hollywood Bowl, Picture by Aaron Wojack.

Blending space science, planet-poking and bluegrass-playing spacecraft operators, the world’s first orchestra composed of space scientists – the International Space Orchestra (ISO) – came together on a magical night to perform as the supporting act to Sigur Rós at the Hollywood Bowl on 24th September 2016, Los Angeles, CA, USA. 17,500 witnessed this magic – If you were one of them, tweet us to tell us what you thought!

As part of the event, ISO players donned their ISO jumpsuits and with their jumbo badges, presented their fascinating work to the crowds, in various locations in the Hollywood Bowl. They took us to the world and beyond and introduced our latest expedition ‘The Life,The Sea and the Space Viking’. You can see some extracts and insights on the video we produced for the event on our latest website www.spaceviking.org
A trailer of the event can be seen here , the full animated film will be released online soon with some exclusive recordings. So watch this space.

Finally, we gathered some fans’ videos which show Nelly introducing the project and thanking all our collaborators at the SETI Institute, NASA Ames Research Center and more. You can listen to some of it by following this link and you can see her going wild, rocking out and head banging with the ISO here!

Nelly with Jonsi during rehearsals at the Hollywood Bowl with the ISO, Photograph by Aaron Wojack.

See pictures of the event on the ISO website

Patch Competition Winners

Sigur Rós and the ISO Patch Designed by Protoplot (David Benqué)

NBH Studios recently launched a competition to win one of 3 limited edition patches, signed by renowned SETI Institute scientists, Sigur Rós or Nelly Ben Hayoun. Thousands of entrants to this competition came from every place in this planet!
The winners who are listed below, should expect us to reach out to them directly soon – and patches will be winging their way to you shortly!

Star from USA, Karin from Sweden, Megan from USA, Jonathan from UK, Sonia from USA, Doug from UK, Dave from Canada, Pedro from Portugal, Antonio from USA, Luka from Australia, Rosalba from Mexico, Matt from USA, Jessica from USA, Kealie from USA, Danny from USA, Jerry from USA, Roy from USA, Raina from USA, Tom from USA, Daniel from USA and Daniela from USA.

NBH Studios Look Forward

This week, Nelly Ben Hayoun was the Keynote Speaker at the Aerial Futures Symposium. The symposium brings thinkers and practitioners to Venice for two days, and is open to the general public.

Nelly Ben Hayoun will sit on the Jury at this years IxDA awards in Santiago Chile. Led by the 2017 jury chair Ravi Naidoo, the Interaction Awards Jury will gather in early November in Santiago, Chile to select this years finalists in each category. Nelly will be judging the awards for the Future of Disrupting and the Future of Engaging categories, together with Eddie Opara, Michelle Berryman and more.

Nelly Ben Hayoun will be speaking at the Metropolitan Museum, New York City, on the 12th November 2016. Nelly will be discussing the launch of her latest project, The Life, The Sea and The Space Viking at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Year of Architecture and Design in a Day Conference. Other speakers include photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, graphic Designer Stefan Sagmeister and speculative architect, long-term collaborator of NBH Studios Liam Young.

Upcoming Talk Details

Nelly Presents The World Over

Photo by AIRBNB Design Team

Nelly Ben Hayoun spoke at DENT:SPACE at the Innovation Hangar in San Francisco on the 21st September. Dent:Space is described as a celebration of humans breaking the status quo of what can be achieved in space exploration.

Nelly Ben Hayoun, a member of the Space Outreach and Education Committee at the International Astronautical Federation and of The Committee for the Cultural Utilization of Space (ITACCUS) chaired session E1.9 Space Culture at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on the 27th of September. This session focused on the process, critical thinking and methodologies underlying space education and outreach events. At the Astronautical Congress, Nelly also presented a paper on the need for a catharsis into the space programme and utilizing the Greek Tragedy’s coersive systems into the space programme.

The day after the Mexico event, Nelly spoke at WeTransfer’s latest event in Los Angeles, California; How We Do event in LA at the ACE Theater (Chaplin’s theater). WeTransfer are our long term partners and collaborators. Nelly spoke alongside Podcaster and storyteller Gideon Brower (KCRW), and she discussed the use of sound as a design material.

In early October, Nelly Ben Hayoun spoke at Airbnb HQ in San Francisco. Nelly presented an argument for the importance of creative passion, inspiration and poetics in communities.

Recent Talk Details

NBH Studios in the Press

Photograph by Darren Webb.

“NOW WHAT, FOR heaven’s sake? Just look at that list of credits! Where does she find the space and time?”. – Bruce Sterling, Science fiction author and ISO collaborator discusses the latest goings on at NBH Studios in his WIRED blog. He then goes on to discuss the launch of Nelly’s latest project, The Life, The Sea and The Space Viking and the International Space Orchestra supporting Sigur Rós at the Hollywood Bowl.

Nelly Ben Hayoun has been interviewed by Will Hudson from Its Nice That, as part of the launch of his latest project Lecture In Progress. Lecture in Progress is an educational resource that exists to help the next generation of creatives make better career decisions. Lecture in Progress is now having a kickstarter campaign, support them here

The Dots has published an article featuring an interview with Nelly Ben Hayoun discussing the International Space Orchestra in depth. Nelly is quoted saying, “Ideas are everywhere, that is the most human skills we have: imagination. It’s also a ‘muscle’, all of us have ideas; the most difficult part is to make them a reality — to filter them, to edit them, to transfer them and then to deliver them. That’s where the ‘creative’ starts for me. Having ideas is not complex, making them happen is the hard bit. The first step is to start, with the International Space Orchestra, it was firing off 100’s of emails, building relationships and moving forward, from there”.

Nelly Ben Hayoun has been interviewed by Rob Alderson from WeTransfer on The Works discussing the launch of her latest project, The Life, The Sea and The Space Viking. Nelly discusses how she picks the projects that she works on saying, ‘Firstly it’s curiosity, to actually pick the subjects that you think are going to merge and collide in an interesting way.

Design Indaba has featured the The International Space Orchestra on its website. The article discusses the ISO’s forthcoming gig at the Hollywood Bowl. The band will support Sigur Rós at the legendary Hollywood Bowl venue on the 24th September. Design Indaba is a multifaceted platform committed to creating a better world through creativity.

Press Archive

Welcome to New NBH Studios Team Members!

Our Team at NBH Studios is growing ever bigger. This month we are welcoming FOUR new members. Marta Giralt Dunjo joins us as our Visual Designer, co-founder of the collective Project M, a group of international designers who share a passion to make and merge motivations, Marta will create our beautiful visuals and join us in our space travel ambitions. Dr. Didier Hoch has also joined our team as our Head of Business Development. Didier is the Co-founder and chairman of Big Booster (International Startups Accelerator Program between Lyon and Boston) the Chairman of Biovision (The World Life Sciences Forum) and independant board member / advisor of startups (DBV, Genticel, OSE Immunotherapeutics, Myasterix). Didier has come on board our team to help us in our risky business! Meanwhile Darren Webb is our brain behind all our social medias strategy and posts, with 15 years experience working in the music and entertainment industry as community manager, he will certainly help us to shake up the digital world above and beyond. Finally welcome to Tamara Hoogeweegen, NBH studios’ research assistant and freelance Graphic Designer, she will develop further our critical and playful identity and wonders where technological innovation will take humans in the future.

See our crew on our website

Disaster Playground Screenings

Disaster Playground Poster. Design by Our Machine.

Over the last few weeks, there have been screenings of our film “Disaster Playground” around the world.

On the 8th of October, the film was screened as part of the Pariscience Festival in Paris, France at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. A few days before that on the 5th of October, the film was screened in Mexico as part of the KOSMICA Festival. KOSMICA Mexico 2016 was held in the Botanical Garden Cosmovitral.

We’ll have news of an upcoming screening of the film in New York soon.

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