Day 06. Activating Digital Futures
Liquid Gold and Other Suns
** A monster at work. Designing the impossible.**
Saturday June 27, 12:45pm EDT
🎤 Keynote
Having just travelled to four continents and beyond 14 cities in one month with the hope of bringing back the origin of knowledge in her suitcase, the Willy Wonka of Design and Science, Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, joins Primer to share the mysteries behind her practice and the production of the impossible, and her experience performing and reenacting the life of political theorist Hannah Arendt.
In this energetic talk, fearless critical explorer, passionate provocateur, Wired Innovation Fellow, and Designer of Experiences Ben Hayoun-Stépanian will create a space for thoughts, debate and provocation around the sociological and critical impact of new technologies. She will define her design work and practice and demonstrate how the Human Condition can prevail over technology. She will pledge for Greek Tragedy and remind the audience that innovation often comes from multidisciplinary conflicts.
She will explain the challenges she faces in her own practice, trying to defy and design in the gravity of the hyperreal, a world where fiction is as truthful as reality. In this passionate keynote, she will share the complexity of her large-scale projects (The International Space Orchestra, Disaster Playground and the University of the Underground) and introduce members of the public to her 'hammering and total bombardment' philosophy.
For Primer, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian will also exclusively share the latest development of her latest project Red Moon, a diasporic investigation of human settlement on the moon.
Who knows: in the end we might find ourselves in the head of Tutankhamun before his head got cut off in ancient Egypt, experiencing an emotional gaze made of crystals and manufactured sun
Nelly Ben Hayoun
Ph.D Designer of Experiences
Nelly is a explorer, director and filmmaker, designer of experiences, alternative educator & free university founder, researcher, inspirational speaker and curator with10 years experiences directing, leading and sustaining projects of large scale, large teams in and out institutions of above 100 staff+, and working and managing complex productions (often described as impossible productions), designing and programming experiences that bring together the public with the sublime in their everyday and in science and negotiating cultural partnerships. Ben Hayoun work in the music, film, design, academic, experiential, tech, innovation, speculative, critical design and political realms, so a various panel of expertise in the cultural and community focused industries, all scales, institutions, academia and beyond.