On the Steps of 36
Episode 24: Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian

Ryan Dillon:
Join us On the Steps of 36, a question-and-answer conversation that crosses the thresholds into the histories, lives, influences and stories of the person and figure behind their work. A podcast by AirAA at the Architectural Association.

Harriet Jennings:
Hello and welcome to On The Steps of 36, a podcast by AirAA at the Architectural Association. Today we are joined by designer of experiences, analogue astronaut and pluridisciplinary artist, Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian.

In her work, Nelly creates multidimensional transdisciplinary projects at the intersection of events, film, science, technology, theatre, politics, music and design with community engagement and accessibility at their core. She just created an incredible immersive experience of installations and planet gazing around London's West End for Piccadilly Unplugged as part of Art After Dark. It included giant inflatable Schrodinger's cats, glowing space rocks, a booth to call the moon, and telescopes to gaze at the planets. In 2017, she founded the University of the Underground, a tuition free university operating from the basement of nightclubs.

And since 2013, Nelly has been the Vice Chair of the International Astronautical Federation Technical Committee on the Cultural Utilisation of Space. In 2012, she established the International Space Orchestra, which is the world's first orchestra of NASA scientists. I've named only a few of Nelly's achievements from a very vast constellation and hopefully we'll go on to touch on some more later.

But Nelly joins us on the podcast having taken part in the AA public programme in March with her lecture ‘Doppelgängers3: Intergenerational Trauma and Decolonial Futures in Space Exploration’. So, Nelly, welcome, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me Harriet and well, super excited to have this conversation with you.

HJ:
Me too. So could we start with you telling us your full name? And it also feels appropriate to ask, what is your star sign?

NBH:
So, I am called Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian and my star sign is, I'm Gemini. Yeah, of course. Doppelgangers like [inaudible], like always exhibit, you know, being in multiverses and so forth.

HJ:
It's written in the stars.

NBH:
Yeah, basically, like literally.

HJ:
And what's something,

NBH:
What's your star sign?

HJ
Oh, I'm a Taurus.

NBH:
Taurus. Solid, solid Taurus.

HJ:
Yeah, exactly. Solid, slightly stubborn and love sleeping. What's something that you wouldn't normally include in your bio that I haven't read out in my long bio to introduce you?

NBH:
I mean, I used to be a jewellery designer in Tokyo.

HJ:
Wow.

NBH:
I was making a strong living out of it, actually. I used to work in Kabukicho, which was the kind of the, you know, the, like the kind of the hot area of Tokyo where, you know, I became really good friends with all of the yakuza, which are like the gangsters of, you know, Japan. And I used to be moulding the fingers they had left on the hands and make jewellery out of it, which is kind of a bit mental, but that's how I started when I was 19, like, really, it became a big thing. And so I will kind of like find myself in this really strange environment where literally I would bring my tin full of alginate, you know, this kind of, like, moulding device. And, you know, yakuza, whenever they do something wrong with their boss or whatever, they cut their fingers. So some of them had all of their fingers, some of them, you know, had only one left, and that was the one that I was moulding. And then I would put, like some nail art on it and then put two balls around, you know, he had this kind of like phallic shape. And that became their pieces of jewellery that they would put really proudly around their neck.

HJ
Wow.

NBH
And it became a big thing, you know. And then I ended up working for this writing critics, which was also a sex worker that was working on tv. And I, you know, she was basically commissioning me to make her, like, mini phallic, you know, kind of shapes that became [inaudible]. So that's how I started. Very much so. And then after I went into kimono, which maybe was a bit more traditional.

HJ
Yeah. Quite a shift. I suppose, to go back even further to how you started, could you tell us where you grew up?

NBH
So I grew up in Valence, which is a small city between Marseille and Lyon, and, yeah, one of the most windy cities we have in France. So that's where I grew up. I grew up in a household that was, you know, very much, I mean, Armenian and Algerian. So on my dad's side, and on my mum's side, Algeria. But I think I was always more, you know, my family on my mum's side always been very much organising a lot of Armenian events. Like, you know, my granddad was the president of this kind of association. Then he got the Armenian genocide recognised with his colleagues. So, you know, they were really active and very much about organising, like, events organising, like, political protests organising. And so that's kind of like how I really. I really grew up in this place where, you know, people would be, like, smoking cigarettes and it was like, always busy. There was always like, some people turning up, in and out. Like, the door was always open, basically.

HJ
Oh, amazing. Sounds very formative. So what kind of building was that that you were growing up in? Was it people together? Just your nuclear family or the wider family as well?

NBH
So, I mean, the house where I really grew up is actually the house of my grandparents. So the, my granddad and my grandmother I mentioned, you know, from the Armenian heritage, and they actually built the house themselves, which I think is, you know. And so, the grandma was living at the, I mean, their mother was living on the bottom floor. And then all of the family, my mum and four brothers, they were, I mean, three brothers were living, you know, above with, you know, like, my grandma and my granddad and, you know, and so for. So, yeah, that's where I grew up. And there was like, yeah, like a garage, like, you know, all of these things. But, yeah, they made it themselves. Like, it was kind of like a. Yeah, it was a big achievement for them, of course, because they moved from, you know, they used to put all of the Armenians, when they arrived into the same street, which was called Rue Bouffier, which still remains to this day, like, the Armenian street of Valence. And they had nothing, you know, like, they absolutely had nothing. But what they had was, like, this sense of community. And, like, just like, everyone knew each other.

And I remember my grand, you know, my, like, the auntie, the sister of my granddad saying that my granddad is the first person that actually bought a TV set. And so everyone would join to just watch the tv. So it was kind of like this big moment, you know, and then they all, you know, whenever one of them, one person of the community would do well, then, you know, it would benefit everyone else, basically. And so everyone will move as a, as a group, you know.

HJ
So did you know all your neighbours, I'm guessing, in this area?

NBH
Talking about my neighbours, my actual neighbours. So, like, where my parents were and where I was sleeping at night most of the time, like, this was actually also really formative to me because I grew up in, you know, I grew up in the house of my neighbours, which were Indian family from Delhi. And so they were like 12 sisters and brothers and sisters. And they were like my family as well. So I have a sister and we used to spend our time in their house, which was, like, obviously, like, you know, 12 humans fighting with each other, like, we used to do all of our games together. So it was a really, like, yeah, really enjoyable, like, use, for sure. Like, being able to just grew up with my neighbours and we still to this day are really close friends. And then Noel arrives then, which is another friend of mine and we also like grew up together, like, and we just followed each other through high school and yeah, it's amazing, you know, when you think that I'm going to turn 40 this year and I'm still so close to the people I grew up with. Like, I actually genuinely, it's like, I mean, it's not that nothing has changed, of course, a lot of things have changed, but it's amazing to be keeping this kindship.

HJ
Yeah.

NBH
As you, you know, as you develop in your practice and they, these people really know you for sure. Even though you might change, you evolve the, we still really, really supportive of each other.

HJ
Who would you say inspired you most as a child?

NBH
Definitely I would say my grandma, my grandpa as well. I would say given the fact that, you know, Armenian people arrived during, so obviously the Armenian genocide happened. Then my great, great grandma crossed the desert of Syria with the kids survived, then they were welcomed in France. And Armenian people used to like gather around the craft of textile and textile making. And so started as a group of immigrants together, this kind of like knitting, you know, factories together. And they became quite successful in fact. And my grandpa, through the years, like in collaboration with the others became, you know, kind of like one of the leading figure of this textile factory to the point that, because they were doing quite well financially, then politics got really attracted to them, you know, and of course it was like a big migrant force. There was quite a lot of Armenians in France, so politics kind of like saw that as an opportunity. And then one politicians asked my granddad to be [inaudible]. And so my granddad moved into politics. And so at that point he became like big thing, like going into protest during the, you know, like the, like the 24 April, which is when we commemorate the Armenian genocide. And so, with that came like a lot of, well, yeah, protest organising. And then he became the person that went to parliament to pitch the recognition of the Armenian genocide. And then, you know, I'm really of what he has achieved, of course, and all of the family, like my grandma as well, like how all of this kind of like came together and I was kind of like a witness of part of all of this, you know, has been really inspirational for sure. And I think this is why what I do is just also so politically driven, for sure.

HJ
Were there any beliefs that you had as a child when you were growing up that maybe now seem ridiculous or like you don't believe them anymore.

NBH
I used to believe that there was a blue end that would come out of the electric socket power to, you know, kind of like eat me alive.

HJ
Any reason why it was blue?

NBH
I don't know, fully speaking, like, I think I saw it once and then it stayed into my head. I mean, yeah, I was like, yeah, I don't know, maybe a mental kid. But yeah, this was like a key belief, like, electricity has always been a passion of mine, which is kind of like dangerous, right?

HJ
The formative blue hand.

NBH
Yeah. I mean, this was just to stop myself and just put my fingers inside the brain sockets, you know.

HJ
I look forward to seeing this in an installation in the future. The blue hand, the blue hand of power.

NBH
Yeah, I mean, we had the blue cats, but why not blue hands?

HJ
So we'll move on now to work and the present day. So how would you describe what you do?

NBH
So I describe what I do as, you know, I call it the design of experiences in the sense of like, you know, we design extreme experiences for you to experience what it is like to have a rocket lift off in your living room while a volcano is erupting in your lounge and dark energy is being produced in your kitchen sink. I mean, really what I do is to design this extreme experience so that I can get members of the public to kind of imagine with, you know, with a sublime and perhaps with more of a radical shift to like, the existing set of references, you know, and kind of like start to think about, like, what could it be like if I was to eat my pancake face-to-face with the unknown, like dark energy. And just to kind of get them to reflect on the scales of seeing at play, in fact. So, you know, most of us, we don't think that we are just part of a larger ecosystem. And so, a big part of my job is to actually design new nonlinear way of teaching, but also get to experience our living environment. Because I think education is obviously, you know, driven by the way that government understands, you know, knowledge. And for me, knowledge is something that has to be questioned every single. It's a, you know, like, I'm part of this, like, Arendtian thinker and, you know, like and Arendt was a political theorist and like a big part of what she talks about is the idea that thinking is always in permanent shift. It's always fluid. It's like, you know, and I think a big problem we have with education is like, it's kind of like very rigid and it doesn't evolve. It doesn't understand the fact that all of these disciplines kind of merge and mix. And so a big part of what I do these days is like a design playground so that members of the public can kind of navigate through all of these different, like, you know, the sun, the underwater, like, seaside ocean, the mushrooms, the intestine. All of these things are connected through the sources of energy, you know, like, that they. They create. And you wouldn't see them in the same space at the same time, but yet they are all connected. And so I'm trying to, like, kind of like bridge all of these words together. So a big part of what I do is, I would say, just purely speaking, pluridisciplinary.

HJ
Yeah.

NBH
And I consider that to be highly, you know, like, politically driven. The sense that I think to have this kind of pluralistic mind at the core is, you know, is the way that I'd like to think about defining land territories not as static, rigid borders, but as things that are always in permanent evolution and linear and so forth. And, you know, it's, I mean, even though I don't believe it, but I think it happens to be quite radical compared to, like, the existing set of reference that we have.

HJ
Yeah, absolutely. Did you always know what you'd end up doing? Or was this,

NBH
You mean when I was making?

HJ
Yeah, when you were making the fingers in Japan, did you kind of think that you'd end up going into alternative education and experiential thinking?

NBH
I mean, you know, I like. Did I, I mean, I knew I was always a bit out of the, you know, the usual kind of

HJ
Mould

NBH
But I didn't realise. Yeah, no, I didn't knew that I would make a living of it, that's for sure. Like, I think I always been seen as being an original kid, a weirdo probably. But, you know, that's kind of like how. Yeah, no, I didn't knew that this would be a thing, but yeah.

HJ
Yeah. And if you could do something else now or add to your amazing repertoire, what would you do?

NBH
I mean, genuinely, I try to do everything I want to do. So I think there is no moment in my life where I feel like, oh, I've not done this, even though I really wanted to do it. I always try to, like, remove all of these barriers, especially with barriers of the thinking and of the mind. That's, I think probably like one of the key elements of the way I function is like, to try and, like, eradicate fear from my, you know, my palate because I think fear is something that is used a lot in totalitarian regime, you know, of course. And it's something that, for someone that is pluralistic at the core of their way of functioning, that actually want to, you know, support pluridisciplinarity, support, like, queer thinking, posthuman thinking. Like, you have to, like, eradicate all of that and so. And actually jump in, you know, with, like, what's on offer. And so, yeah, so I try to pretty much live by my, by my ideas. But what else? I mean, what do I want to do? Like, right now, I have this idea that I can sing. I want to learn how to sing. So I'm going to take classes. I'm not taking yet, but I want to take classes.

HJ
Oh, amazing. I look forward to seeing where that takes you. Solo singing or like, in a choir?

NBH
Christmas tune. I've been talking about this forever. Like, I think the best University of the Underground fundraising strategy we ever had was to come up with a Christmas tune that would be as big as Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’. Because if that becomes the saying, then suddenly, like, whoa, you know, like, funding sorted for life, basically. And we can fund, like, free education and pluralistic transnational education forever, you know?

HJ
Okay, watch this space, everyone. Speaking of space, is there one space in particular that you work in?

NBH
Yes, So I work. I mean, my office is quite unusual.

HJ
Can you describe that?

NBH
So it's on top of a nightclub, actually, University of the Underground. We are down below nightclubs, usually. But the office is actually a train carriage which has been positioned on top of a roof. And that roof is the one of the nightclub called the Village Underground. And the Village Underground is one of the oldest, like, grassroots nightclub that we have in London. It's been there for, like, now, I think it's 16 years or 17 years in Shoreditch, which is, of course, like, gentrified to the max now. And it's interesting to see how, you know, like, a lot of buildings have popped up to completely, like, erratic scales. And then the only thing that is left is this kind of like, you know, like, I mean, the only thing that is left from the original, like, I would say cultural hub is this nightclub with, like, this train on top of it, which became a landmark as well. Like, it's like [inaudible], you know, cannot touch this. And they have, like. Yeah, so my office is extremely colourful. It's got, like, props of all of my previous films, all of the previous project, all of the previous expeditions, all of the previous, like, festivals. All of these things are in there and it's completely overwhelming. And, yeah.

HJ
And it's in the carriage?

NBH
It's in the carriage, yeah.

HJ
Incredible. Have to visit. Is there a book that you've read that's had a particular impact on your work?

NBH
I mean, there is many books, but I'd say, I mean, obviously I mentioned Hannah Arendt and Arendt is, so I made a film actually about Hannah Arendt called I'm Not a Monster, in which I try to unpack some of the key learning or like, the way that she used to speak about thinking in action. And what does it take to think in action? So it's like the film is basically, I go and I play an Arendt and I kind of go and meet all of her former students, but also take Hannah Arendt outside of the Western thoughts because she's, you know, she's a political theorist that died in 1975. She escaped the Holocaust, like, went to France, then started to teach at the New School in Philosophy. And really, she wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism, which kind of made its comeback when Trump was elected the first time, now even more so, you know, and she really unpacked basically this idea of totalitarianism regime, when does that come in? And when do you kind of eradicate critical thinking from, you know, your palette as a human? And what are the system in place that kind of like, lead to that? And yeah, so she's someone that really informed my way of functioning and my way of understanding education as well. You know, obviously, being someone that has got this heritage, Armenian and Algerian, you know, I tend not to trust politics because politics and nation states have led to the genocide of Armenian people, but also the Algerian, you know, colonisation, which was 182 years of colonisation from the French, right? And then the torture that were done and so forth. And that was all under the watch of, you know, nation states. And of course, what's happening now in Gaza with the genocide is also something that is completely supported by nation states.

So for me, it's always been interesting to start considering how you can build new ways of functioning, new platforms that don't specifically exist within nation states and are not representative only of like the kind of the, you know, the existing mainstream politics. And so that's why I always navigate, and I've always been within countercultures or, you know, I worked a lot in nightlife. I do a lot of projects within nightlife because also I believe that, you know, nightlife by definition is kind of existing outside of the status quo of the, you know, daytime working day and so forth. And there is always a lot of innovation and freedom of thinking, purely speaking about how all of these worlds kind of merge into giving an expense to a member of the public. So, yeah. So, yeah. And Arendt definitely a great thinker, so I will recommend people to read The Human Condition, for example, where she talk about Oppenheimer and the invention of the atomic bomb. And, you know, the fact that Oppenheimer was, like, what she called a homo faber, someone who, you know, think. And actually he was an [inaudible], like someone that make. And then you have the people who. And the kind of big issue that you find in any scientific institution as well, which is kind of leading back to my work, is that you have people that think, that make decision, and then you have people who make the engineer, the scientist, and the two of them don't mingle with each other. And that's part of the issue, and that's part of the reason why you end up with places like the atomic bomb, where Oppenheimer is seen on TV saying, I didn't realise this was gonna happen. I didn't knew that would kill millions of people. And yeah, and so the International Space Orchestra, for example, is an example of trying to bridge this world together. So you're playing the dobro, you're the head of NASA, I'm playing the trumpet, and I'm the engineer that just started. Suddenly, we can have conversation with each other, critical conversation, not just through music and music instruments, but also because we suddenly are in the same room. And for me, it's always been about trying to embrace that kind of critical thought within the technological kind of context. So I can try and shift ways that maybe paths are going to develop or try to shift minds. So then, you know, the hope is always that we don't repeat the story. So yeah, Hannah Arendt.

HJ
Yeah. No, that's really interesting, I think. Yeah. I really like what you're saying about bridging that gap. I feel like increasingly everyone gets more and more siloed and more and more specialised, and then there are all these conversations missing in between. So, yeah. The power of art or music or nightlife or whatever it is to bring those people together and have those critical conversations is more important than ever. Yeah. If there was one device that you could invent that would aid your work and maybe aid the world, what would it be?

NBH
Teleportation.

HJ
How come?

NBH
I mean, obviously I've always been driven by doppelgangers, so, I mean, obviously I'm coming here to speak to you about, like, this new film that is coming out in June in the UK, but Doppelgängers3 is like, So I started to work with doppelgangers, actually, like, literally, because teleportation has always been something that I've been fascinated with. So in 2015, you know, I used to do a lot of public speaking, and it became a point where I was like, okay, I cannot be in all these places at the same time. How about, you know, I kind of, like, build. And I always been fascinated by economics as well. Like, you know, how to kind of build alternative funding models and da, da, da, da, da. And so, I started to think that in the world of public speaking, everything is put in the product, and you're the product, the speaker. And so there is a cost attached to that speaker, depending on experience on many different things. And I realised that my male colleagues, who had the same qualification than me, and of course, perhaps even sometimes less years of experience than I did, were paid more than I was. And I was like, that's not right. So then I kind of did it a bit as a cynic kind of intervention, where I started to then pitch to public agency the fact that, you know, if you want me, the real deal, then, and pay me the big bucks, then you have Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian coming to your event. But if you cannot afford that, then you can have the copy, which is my doppelganger, which is some people that I've trained, like, actors that I selected, you know, and we kind of train, get them to, like, do the same speech that I would do and look like me. And, of course, it was also kind of like, you know, a critique of what people are expecting as an experience. What's the Nelly Ben Hayoun experience? Like, the person in the jumpsuit with, like, the red lipstick, da la la la la, you know, and so it's, it became that. And then we ended up doing a few events together, like, and, you know, and it worked for a while. Like, actually, people did book, you know, the doppelgangers and so forth. And then it became a movie where I then connected with my doppelgangers in Algeria and in Armenia who, you know, lived in countries where I never grew up, right. And so, there is this kind of fantasy of, you know, how my life would have been in Armenia or how my life would have been if I was in Algeria, yet I grew up in France. So, you know, I'm very much stamped with the French education, even though I spend a lot of time unlearning that. You know, and so it was kind of reconnecting with this heritage, but then at the same time trying to like bridge borders of gender and bridge border of, you know, like [inaudible] and putting this in the context of a space mission as well, in relation to intergenerational trauma, and how they negotiate their history in their decision making processes and how I do that as well. Having grew up separately, this kind of notion of dislocation is something that we have investigated through this creative medium of doppelgangers. So yeah, teleportation is an, I mean, and of course it's the opposite of teleportation because with doppelgangers you are living together. Like, I mean, at least the film Doppelgängers3 is really about us together, not in different location, actually reuniting together. But yeah, teleportation is something that I think is.

And, and of course I work in space and the space industry. And so a big part of what I'm interested in is how the, the power play between, you know, earth governance and of course space. And a lot of people sometimes ask me but like, why are you into the space thing? And I'm into the space thing because first I believe that in order to activate our imagination, space can be a very powerful tool for any member of the public to reclaim their imagination outside of what we are being fed with by nation states and media and so forth. But then the other part of that is also because I believe that with space there is an opportunity to actually modify what's going on earth because the two are directly connected. Like surveillance and teleportation is a big part of the, you know, like in militaries, you already have teleportation, in gaming as well, like you know, where you are. And that's, Paul Virilio, that talk about this, this idea that you can be in one space, like manipulating a drone in like, I don't know, like in, like wherever. And then that drone can, you know, can drop a bomb for example, and you can do that from a remote place. You don't need to be there in the live experience. So this notion of teleportation, I've been in militaries for a long time already and in space for sure.

HJ
Yeah. Do you think with space it's like the kind of promise of a new world or being able to imagine a different world or a world as we'd like it to be?

NBH
Yeah, I mean, I think you mean force or for like?

HJ
For us, is that what appeals to you about the promise of space? So you're talking about the public imagination and how it allows people to bring their imaginations back to life. And is it because it gives us this like not a blank slate, but at least a new place where we could imagine society and you know?

NBH
Absolutely. I think it's something that allow definitely, you know, this kind of world building idea also is something that I think encourage people to take agency as well, like not repeating the things that have already happened and kind of like also consider alien aesthetics, which is for me, also something that I'm fascinated by. And especially in the past few years where everything I do is trying to convey that idea of alien aesthetics. Especially in the context of future thinking and visions that are being fed to member of the public. I think if you think about space and space exploration, you start to realise really quickly, you close your eyes and I tell you outer space, you're thinking about a white rocket going in space and maybe there is SpaceX written on it or there is a NASA logo which we call the meatball by the way. And you see these things and they all, like these visions are all black and white, and mainly white in fact, but they don't have to be. And I think that's the key. It's like when you start to unpack this and realise that a rocket can be any given colours, like it could be like completely fluorescent, like green, like whatever you want it to be. In fact, there is no financial reason why it's not like raw metal, you know, like there is none of that in fact. Like of course you could argue like white reflect like heat, da da da. But it's not even true anymore. Like you can get that from any given colour and it's not even justified on a financial basis because you could also just remove that cut there.  So there is all of this reasoning why you start to realise actually, there is a certain vision that is being fed about what these views of humanity being in space could look like. And these are heteronormative patriarchal visions that are being fed to us again and again and again. So when you start to unpack that, and I think space is a good way of doing this, then you start to realise all of this. The issue we have as well here on earth. And that to me is. And so yeah, alien aesthetics with that comes like, what colour does that take? Is that iridescent? Is that 3D? Is that 2D? You know, I've been working a lot with Unreal Engine, which you find in gaming. So I did this project with like an electric Porsche thing which was interesting as well, like trying to define the aesthetics through gaming and this kind of like aesthetics of things, you know. And I know that in architecture there is a lot of that as well, like trying to define these aesthetics and trying to rethink it within the built environment or within space mission is definitely something that I'm fascinated by.

HJ
Interesting. We had a talk, well, a series recently about AI and there was a conversation as part of one of the events about the aesthetics of AI and how they kind of lean towards this kind of globby, gloopy, stretched sort of alien-ish figures. And then in that same talk, someone was talking about quantum and how that will be the next aesthetic move as people start to use that programming and how it will all change to being a lot more like pixelated and anyway, quite interesting to think about how those we kind of respond to the technologies in how we think.

NBH
I mean, quantum and quantum physics is a big passion of mine. And of course the last film, Doppelgängers3 is also featuring like Michio Kaku is like these physicists that speak a lot about quantum physics and the idea that as a physicist you need to drop any common sense and what you see is actually not what it is in the quantum world is suddenly expand your mind in such a way.

HJ
How do you visualise the unseeable?

NBH
And this is also like, I work at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, which has been founded in 1994 or 6, I wouldn't check, I can't remember, by Carl Sagan, who then went Carl Sagan and Jill Tartar, and he went on to do the Cosmos TV series. And then Jill Tartar was a character behind Contact, the film, you know, like where you see Jodie Foster looking for extraterrestrials. But what's interesting with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is like everything is a blank slate, like in order to design an institute that has got, for function as research, to look for extraterrestrial intelligence, you need to think completely outside of the box because it's not like if we know what sort of frequency extraterrestrial intelligence going to be sending from outer space. Like, we don’t, so you have to think like, okay, how do animals communicate? What sort of like lexicon do they use to communicate? Will that inform the signal that we might receive from extraterrestrial intelligence so obviously start to like move you into direction that are outside of the humanistic, human, you know, like human-centred focus idea that we have since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. You have to start shifting completely away from that, decentralise the human completely from the equation and start looking at how bacteria exists, how life has been defined as being a thing, but actually maybe on another planet might be something else. And that to me is again something that, and I recommend another book as well which is called Posthuman Feminism, which I'm reading at the moment by Rosi Braidotti. And it's, I mean it's like everything I'm talking about here is like this idea that you decentralise a human and you start to like actually investigate what are these spaces that are fluid. You're still talking within the materiality of something. But it's an interesting like critical exercise to start looking from that perspective because then suddenly open up like a whole range of possibilities creatively, but also in terms of like the project that you might do. And yeah, and I found it extremely inspiring when thinking about queerness and queering space and space exploration because ultimately if you start to apply posthuman thought in that, then you start to really start to understand as well how we cannot go as a human species with this kind of heteronormative like men centred bodies. But we have to expand, transform, transition. And then in that sense a trans body is the essence of actually survival in space and as humanity. And that to me is, yeah, it's an interesting, like, it's an interesting fact, I would say at a time where of course Trump is eradicating equity, diversity and inclusion and eradicating trends and trans rights from the Constitution of the US and also from space and space exploration. Well, of course any scientist and any people like me that work from the cultural sector would tell you that actually, this is completely the opposite way of, if you want humanity survival, you're going to have to support very much so queer thinking because those ways you don't survive life, that's it, that's the end of it.

HJ
Super interesting.

NBH
And also, in terms of giving birth, like queering birthing is something that I'm working on at the moment as well. Yeah.

HJ
Oh wow. I'm going to bring it back down to earth. Where you live now?

NBH
Where do I live now? I live in Homerton.

HJ
And architecturally, what kind of building is it?

NBH
It's a Victorian building, it's falling apart, it's got like water infiltrating through all of it. But I'm. I mean, I always seem to be, you know, like, because also of the way I grew up and I realise this from your question, I always love the interaction between the top floor, the bottom floor and so forth. So my neighbour from upstairs, she's called Marianne Power, which I recommend you listen to, read her books, they are absolutely amazing. She wrote a book called Help Me where she goes through self-help book every month. And it's really funny and it's quirky because of course, like, you know, one month she's gonna be reading this book where you have to say fuck you to everyone and then she goes through that process of like saying fuck you to everyone, but super informative, super personal and quite universal in that sense, you know. And then she did a new book called Love Me where she's actually really unpacking this idea of like a single life, what it is. And she kind of like do it through tantra sex. And of course, coming from like a Catholic Irish background, has to kind of like get rid of all of this shaming situation that kind of like stop her from exploring, you know, the kind of the pleasure of her body and reclaiming pleasure and sex education as well as, Yeah, so it's super inspirational. And she live upstairs, so whenever, every Saturday I do coffee and then I would broom my stick up and then she knows it's time to come down. And then down below is my other neighbour called Thomas Petherick, who is a sculptor and he's also a set designer and he's living at the bottom side do the same thing. I drop the stick and then he comes up. And then there is Rachel Bungey, who is an amazing artist that then joined us as well recently and she's now living with Thomas. And yeah, and so same thing, like, you know, we just find ourselves like, kind of like being in this Victorian building, but like everything is kind of like quirky and you know, there is so many of us and there is like eight of us in this building. And I know, you know, we always do events and you know, kind of.

HJ
Oh, amazing. So like another community you found yourself. Yeah, all connected by the, the beat of the broomstick. When you call people down, literally or up. And is there one hidden space? Well, in London or it could be anywhere that you'd recommend for people to visit.

NBH
Well, so right now we have an exhibition going on at St James Market and nobody, and it's called like this Cabinet of Curiosity that we developed with local youth group in Westminster Council. And it was, it's called, you know, the was bout, we called it Extraordinary Extraterrestrials. And it was the idea of unpacking this idea of extraterrestrials and iconography and visions that popular culture have vacuolated about what an extraterrestrial look like. And so each of the, you know, and so this local youth group, like, so it was Westminster City Lions. They kind of, you know, each of the youths kind of developed their own version. So they had like a sort of a class being given to them by the Science Museum. Rebecca Mellor came. She's amazing. And she kind of unpacked all of the iconography and then kind of told them what currant is on offer. And then they all had to reflect on that and kind of like make their own version of extraterrestrial sales. And so it became these ceramic pieces that are in display there. And there is this amazing, beautiful cabinets, all made of wood that were there, that are part of the architecture of St James Market. It's just off, like, Piccadilly. And most people don't know, I didn't even knew that was there. And when I saw it the first time, I was like, this is beautiful. Like, it's, I don't know, like, it's reminiscent from, like, the 19th century, kind of, like wooden cabinets, beautiful space. And so I didn't know it was there. And I would recommend everyone to go and see the exhibition until the end of May. The other hidden spaces I love, obviously, I spend a lot of time in the underground, so I do love, like, a good underground space. And I, unfortunately, it's not there anymore, but there used to be a space called Shunt, which was a nightclub under London Bridge. And I used to walk there as well. And it was 10 kilometre of, like, trails, and it was exceptional. Like, we had events going on every single, like, three nights. It was just a different place. You had to knock the door two times to get in.

HJ
Wow.

NBH
And then you had bars and everything. Yeah.

HJ
That's incredible. Would you bring that? The next question was, if there was a piece of architecture that no longer exists but you could bring back, what would it be, and would it be Shunt?

NBH
Oh, God. Like, I don't know. What a piece of architecture that doesn't exist anymore, what could that be? I don't know. I'm blanking there. What would be a good?

HJ
Or it could be a space. So it could be like a nightclub that's been shut down.

NBH
I Mean, yeah, I mean, for sure, for sure. Definitely something from the underground, 100%.

HJ
And is there a particular landscape that's meaningful to you?

NBH
Well, like any Armenian, I'm going to say the Mount Ararat is a big thing for us because the Mount Ararat is this mountain that is currently in Turkey. But for every single Armenian, it's our symbol. It's the space, it's a space that reclaim freedom, that reclaim liberation, that, you know, kind of is a memory always of the genocide and you know, like. Yeah, it's kind of like this idea of, yeah, it's an idea of freedom for all of us. And it's got like, it's ingrained as well in natural and, you know, ecological context, which I love. And you can only see it some days, not every day. Sometimes there is a big fog. And when you are in Yerevan, sometimes you see the Mount Ararat, sometimes you don't see it. And in general, like, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's like a character in its own right, you know, like, because sometimes there is a fog that hides it. And so it's the start of storytelling, I think, for me. Yeah. So Mount Ararat is definitely a place for sure.

HJ
And if there was a popular building or a piece of art that you could remove from its pedestal, what would it be?

NBH
I mean, Picasso for sure. Totally overrated. Big time. Big time. I think Rem Koolhaas building. Big time. I think also I went to Kazakhstan and I visited the Norman Foster building that is there, where they have the opera house and that's like. I remember seeing like bucket of water and the troups that were, you know, like trying to rehearse while there was like water leaking from the building because it didn't got finished to the point where there was like this kind of leaking water coming in in the middle of their like rehearsal space. Totally overrated. I mean. Yeah, basically, like, I think all of. Yeah, I think all of these dudes that are having like the centre stage are just literally like, just move.

HJ
Move them over. And who would you put in their place?

NBH
Well, I will put. Who will I put in their place? I will definitely put, I mean, I would put people like Mirrored Fatality, which are, you know, long term collaborator of mine, Samar and Láwû. And unfortunately Láwû passed away. But I feel like Samar is also developing like, you know, we'll maintain the legacy and actually keep on developing groundbreaking work, I would say. Who else do I found extremely inspiring? I would put people like [inaudible], people like [inaudible], basically all of the former students of the University of the Underground, which for me are doing the most interesting work because it's Anna that has been looking at the Kinto and the role of the Kinto, which is this kind of transition traditional character in Georgia, and how this character that is part of the traditional teaching in Georgia is actually fundamentally queer, even though in Georgia you're not allowed to be, it's fundamentally homophobic, you would get arrested. And so she's been looking at how this character has actually always been queer and kind of bringing this back into the context of the institution to actually make them realise that that fundamentally their history and the history of the Georgian people has always been, you know, across these queer characters, basically. Yeah. So lots of interesting people there, like Alexander Cromer, like Tom Burke, like. Yeah, all of them.

HJ
Amazing. Yeah. Shifting the canon. Could you tell us about the last cultural event you attended?

NBH
I went to see a show in Sadlers Well East, which has just opened, which is off in Stanford?

HJ
Stratford

NBH
And I went to see a show by La Horde, which is this troupe from Marseille. And yeah, I mean it was.

HJ
You enjoyed it?

NBH
I did enjoy it. There was like this scene where they were reenacting like situation from gaming and choreography. You know, I don't know NPO. I can't remember, NPO? It's like nonparticipant technique. But it's this kind of, you know, dancing technique, like you fake like if you're in a game. That was exceptional. Like dancing moves and the sets were exceptional, the dancing was exceptional. And then it was kind of like, the only thing I would say is like it was kind of like done and dusted in 70 minutes, you know. And I think always have this issue when the product is just such a product, you know.

HJ
Too contained or like?

NBH
Yeah, yeah, I think it felt like too contained, like a kind of. But maybe that's the way things are, you know, like now we are so used to like defining a certain. Like there is no. I like. I like the DIY, I like the do it yourself. I like that aspect. And I think now this is something that I'm definitely more looking to experience and less so going to a place where, especially in live performances, I don't really want to look at the live performances. Like I would look to a film where I feel like a film is a product that is obviously by definition contained. Even though you can have like a 3D experience. You can have, like. It can get messy in many ways. You know, like. Like, if you think about The Substance, where you have this kind of visceral aspect that has been added to the layer of like, this kind of 2D experience, like. With live performance, I think I'm really after this kind of like. Yeah, just natural vulnerability in a way.

HJ
Yeah, yeah. Interaction with like the here and now and the people in the room.

NBH
Yeah, yeah. But even say that it's an amazing. It was extremely inspirational. There was like everything I'm talking to you about, like, teleoperation. Like, there was the car that was teleoperated by another dancer, then a dancer going on top of that car that they made specifically for the show. You know, this kind of collaboration with technology, like, all of these topics are so rooted into the, you know, the contemporary interest. So, you know, well done.

HJ
Yeah. And moving to music. Is there a piece of music that first really resonated with you or impacted you?

NBH
00:48:08.150 - 00:51:10.200
I would say definitely Dle Yaman, which is this, it's the song that is famous in Armenia for being the song of the genocide, in fact. And it's a really sad song. And you have this like, female singer singing like Dle Yaman. And it's kind of like, yeah, it's something that is always really like. It's like literally being stabbed in my heart. But then I would say more recently, I lost someone that I love so deeply and they, Láwû, you know, part of my fraternity and [inaudible] and they incredible noise artist, like avant garde artist. Just someone that was completely a battalion aesthetics for sure. Like, always reinvented the genre and we lost them way too young in a car accident, which is just the most, like, horrific things that can happen. And, you know, like, I think their pieces of music was, you know, like, we collaborated, like, where my family had their heartbeat. Like, I recorded their heartbeat and then Láwû then went and made their own version of the heartbeat of my family and mixed up with like, some songs from Armenia and, you know, some traditional song from the Philippines. And it became this piece that was again, like, completely resonating at a completely different level. And he was playing from Piccadilly Circus as part of this Piccadilly Un:Plugged project. And then we sent it to the moon and back. And so, of course I was really interested in also hearing the sound of this music that they made back from earth was, something from the other or something from like, another kind of dimension. And I think it took a complete different, I would say, meaning, because of course, of the loss that comes with this person not being here anymore to witness the receiving of that track because the track was received one day after they passed away. So you feel like this music contain grief and remembrance in some level, but also it contained displacement because he's been all the way to the moon. You know, kind of like it goes in the moon and then the sound comes back. There is like a whole distorted effect that, you know, in which the sound is connected with the origin of the universe, the Big Bang. That's what happened when you have a sound going in, like it feeds itself with a static from, you know, from the universe. And then, you know, you have an observatory that kind of captures the sound back. And then we then broadcasted that back in Piccadilly Circus. And I've found myself listening to this static quite a lot as I am growing grieving the loss of this really dear friend. And I think, yeah, there is something quite beautiful about it. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like, I just feel maybe there is something very poignant.

HJ
So we're going to move on to politics. And I wanted to ask, seamlessly,

NBH
Bring it on.

HJ
Is there anything in the current popular discourse around, like space exploration, I mean, particularly I think with everyone, this kind of predominance of the interest in like the billionaire space race. But is there anything that you think we're really missing, and we should be talking about, but instead we're distracted with this kind of masculine ego competition?

NBH
Absolutely. I think we, you know, and we kind of speak about, we spoke about this as well in this conversation where there is this a heteronormative, patriarchal and I mean, sorry to use these big words, but you know, bottom line, this is like kind of a cliche of like what it is really of like the Jeff Bezos and the Elon Musk and let's just spell it out. So in terms of like their visions, right, because there is an ideology that comes with their views and their mission, and the mission they are feeding member of the public with. So Jeff Bezos is looking into hyper manufacture. So how to take all of the manufacturing of planet earth and bring that in space. So all the dump that we have on planet earth, bring the industry up. So it's a hyper industrial vision. And it's a vision, it's definitely an ideology in itself. Let's move the industry above and beyond and actually build a new economy. That's Jeff Bezos. Then Elon Musk has this vision of interplanetary species which is about actually taking a colony, and they call it colony, and have settlement going on the moon, then Mars. And so you kind of take a step by step kind of approach and then you keep on building this court of humans going. And kind of the common thread across all of them is that they are humanistic, sorry I should say, like visions. They're very much in the train of thought that you have since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. And you could argue where is NASA into that and where are publicly funded programmes like European Space Agency and others? Well, European Space Agency is working on the Moon Village, which beyond the fact that it makes you cringe to think this notion of a village being kind of like being centred and put at the forefront without actually acknowledging what a village is from an indigenous perspective and not recognising that at all. That's not even part of their discourse. The use of that world is not even part of the conversation. So it's kind of like their Moon Village is more of a conversational piece and it's more like idea like world building kind of scenario. And then I'm trying to think about where we are with NASA. With NASA it's kind of like, okay, well there's is collaboration obviously with SpaceX, like the Artemis mission, sending people onto the moon. So there is definitely this idea of going back to the moon and kind of like using the regolith again to build a new economy. The regolith is the matter that you find on the moon. So this is what we have currently at play. Right, so then what could be a posthuman kind of vision of like that space and space exploration? And for me it's one that is, and weirdly enough I would say that I've found myself being excited about two things. Like I'm excited about the posthuman thought for me is really about like I mentioned, like queering and investigating the in between and the spaces that are not coming from the heritage, which of course will then mean going back to knowledge that you find in indigenous culture, acknowledging it and, and build, although I don't really like that word build, but like build from there and maybe mixing that with you know, like aesthetics and this kind of conversation on aesthetics, which for me is obviously maybe more my area of expertise because I'm a creative. Right. And then the other side of that is like psychiatry is also something that I'm really fascinated about, even though it's a very human centred idea. Psychiatry and the consciousness.

So even though I'm interested in posthuman thoughts, which is the idea of decentring the human as part of the conversation and starting looking at species and bacterias, robotic rights. Da da da da da. Then the other side of the story is psychiatry. For me, something of great excitement because I can see the potential of psychiatry in defining universal language, perhaps, which, like, I'm someone that has been, you know, I've been brought up with people like Frantz Fanon another psychiatrist. He's a psychiatrist, but also a philosopher. And he's someone that has been like an advocate for decolonial thoughts. He's been a fighter. He's been fighting in Algeria against the French, and he's known for all the revolutionary thinker. He died quite young actually, when he was 38, but he was running a psychiatry unit in Algeria. And he's been writing about the aura of torture and what colonisation can do to the mind. And for him there was an idea of liberation that comes with postcolonial thoughts. And that idea of liberation comes with this notion of reinventing the universal. So once you have decolonised, once you have used, I mean, in this sense, the power of violence because it involves violence in order to reclaim your freedom, if you're colonised, you know, then you have to start defining this new idea of like universal thinking. And I'm really excited about trying to understand what form, that universal commonality between species can take shape. And for someone that comes from like, I'm excited about plurality. I always been looking, looking into having multiple kind of viewpoints to kind of look into universalism as a counterbalance to. What I'm excited about is quite like. I mean, it gets me quite excited intellectually. I don't know where that's going to lead me, but of course, with music, with sound, you start to get into that kind of like universal reaction to beats that is maybe more mechanical, how the body kind of connect to that. Yeah. So it kind of like opened up like a whole layer for me of like. And then I come to, from universalism and from this idea of universal, I come to the idea of peace, which of course is something that I always, I mean, that has been driven. All of my political engagement is like, how can I support peace? So through decolonial practices, through all of this philosophy, how can you get to the point where universal peace is there, you know, as a state, not just as an idea, but as something that you experience. And of course, someone that is designing expanse is going to be excited about. Like, what if I could give you the expanse of peace? What does that look like?

HJ
And beyond just the absence of war?

NBH
Yeah. And of course, like, what is going to be this, how do you make that an active project? And so, the International Space Station used to be this active project because the International Space Station is a collaboration of every single nation state on this planet. Now, in 2030, the International Space Station is being decommissioned. So the key project here for any creative and any architect there is to think about what's coming after the International Space Station, what is going to be the Global Peace Project, since the United Nations is not that global peace project, as we've seen on and on again, with the creation of, and the way that the creation of the State of Israel has happened, being fully endorsed by the United Nations without consideration of bringing everyone on the table and having conversations, you know, like, there is power play that are massive at the United Nations. It's not like, you know, and I'm saying this like, I have done work at the United Nations within the context of outer space, which is quite different from, you know, like, contemporary, like, conflicts. But, like, how do you. Like what. What is that? If the United Nations is on that place, then what do you do with the International Space Station? Do you make it in a museum that everyone can kind of contribute to? How do we consider. And I think it's an interesting exercise.

HJ
Yeah, really interesting. Very interesting provocation. There's so much to unpack in what you just said. We probably don't have time. But a few things just made me think of, I'm reading a book at the moment by Ursula Le Guin called The Word for World is Forest. And it is basically about humans who we've exploited all our resources on earth. We've destroyed the planet and they're doing international exploration or travel, and they're going to colonise other places. And they land on this planet and they start to extract all of those resources. But the people that live on that planet, it's kind of about their interaction with those people. And it's really this decolonial post human project. And I think you'd really like it, so I'd recommend it.

NBH
I mean, 100%. Thank you.

HJ
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, literally in their language, the word for world is forest. And they live through this forest which is being destroyed by the people. And the word for root is dream. And it's really great.

NBH
But I think, yeah, language as well, it's like, I mean, we've not even spoke about that. But like, in the context of psychiatry, because I jumped into Frantz Fanon and stuff. But like, in the context of psychiatry, like, if, you know, like [inaudible] who is a political theorist I went to interview as part of Doppelgänger3. He's speaking about liberation through, like, well, in order to go in space, like what he says literally in the film is like, you have to be mad. You have to actually think that you can exist outside of the common thread of realities that we are in, right. So this idea of madness as an inspiration towards liberation is something that is, like, obviously, like, well, quite controversial in our current society because you would say, like, someone that is mad should be put into a yard. Well, of course, what the conversation is here is like, within madness, there is an element of, you know, there is an element of, like, existing outside of a certain and liberal system where you don't fit within this context and then develop new language that is not the same conscious language that you and I perhaps are using, but as its own right and its own existence. And that new voice that kind of like its own existing kind of vibrato or whatever you call it, then I'm really excited. I think this is where it's at, like, this kind of neural science. Like, how do you unpack that? How do you actually free ourselves from that language that we have established for ourselves? Which obviously means that we are really restricted in the way that we think about futures.

HJ
Unlearning and reshaping in a way.

NBH
Yeah, totally.

HJ
Amazing. Well, we're going to wrap up with a quick-fire round. Are you ready?

NBH
Okay. Okay.

HJ
Are you a morning person or a night owl?

NBH
Night owl.

HJ
What are you currently reading?

NBH
Well, posthuman futurism. No, feminism. Posthuman Feminism. Sorry.

HJ
Amazing. And do you have a guilty pleasure?

NBH
Well, actually, [inaudible] offered me this. It's figs surrounded with, like, dark chocolate, and then they've got whisky in them, and it's absolutely amazing treat. You know, she gifted this to me for my birthday and I never looked back.

HJ
Sounds delicious. And what is your most prized possession?

NBH
My most prized possession. I mean, I don't want to sound too materialist. I'm just trying to think, like, what could be my most prized? I guess maybe, maybe the bracelet that my mum gifted me. I actually think this is something that I cherish very much so. And I have them every day, in fact. So, yeah, I really cherish them. There’s three of them, they always come as a trilogy as well, which I think is quite interesting how it follows me, you know, that number.

HJ
Yeah. Beautiful. And what was your first experience of the AA?

NBH
I joined the AA initially into a road trip, which was set by the [inaudible] by Kate Davies and Liam Young. And I was part of it, like with the students, we went into Baikonur Cosmodrome, the [inaudible] and then Chernobyl. And it was like life changing. In fact, the International Space Orchestra was a project that I developed while I was on that trip as part of the [inaudible]. I have this memory of absolute chaos and completely phenomenal, like out of the ordinary experience, going on a trip with them and their students and yeah, just being a part of it and kind of mentoring along the way. But at the same time, I was being mentored more than I was mentoring. I think that's kind of like,

HJ
Nice reciprocal relationship. And could you describe the AA in one word?

NBH
No.

HJ
It goes against your pluralistic.

NBH
Exactly. I was going to say. Like no because you would keep on changing, you know, I think, no, I'm not going to give you awards for the AA. I think it's like it's always shifting, moving according to times, according to students, according to anyone. So yeah, it's a big, big word. Like I don't know what that can be, but many of them.

HJ
Amazing. Thank you so much, Nelly. Thank you to speak with you. Thanks for listening to this episode.

AirAA podcasts are developed, recorded, mixed and edited by the Architectural Association from our home on Bedford Square in central London, London. To find more episodes, view the show notes and explore other AirAA series, visit air.aaschool.ac.uk

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