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.
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.
Set in Algeria, Armenia and France, the film asks, "How will human inhabitants of the moon understand origin, borders and nations?"
She holds a PhD in Human Geography and Political Philosophy from Royal Holloway, University of London, UK under the supervision of Professor Harriet Hawkins.
[26] 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.
[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.
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.
[44] Disaster Playground is a large multi-platform project with a number of components including a feature film, a digital platform and an exhibition.
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.
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”.
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 In December 2013, Nelly Ben Hayoun announced her collaboration with file sharing service, WeTransfer.
Dr. Ben Hayoun said " We are committed to making all our finances public and we are transparent in this process"[57] 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.