Rushing through the dense bustle of central London on your way to dinner or a show, you’d be forgiven for not finding time to contemplate the marvels of outer space. Understanding how divorced urban living can be from our natural environment or the universe, London-based artist Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian has staged a neon, multi-sensory, intergalactic takeover of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. The installation uses a cutting-edge technology known as Moon bounce to bring astronomical sounds to the city.
“I’m inviting members of the public to start reconsidering their place within the cosmos, how to build bridges of communication between our urban city centers and the universe, and to think about communication with extraterrestrial intelligence,” the artist explained.
The free public spectacle, titled Piccadilly Un:Plugged, part of Art of London’s “Art After Dark” program, concludes on March 8. Also on the program are one-off late night gallery openings and a screening on the iconic Piccadilly Lights of Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s film From The Void To The Full, which promises to take viewers on a journey from the very darkest ocean depths to mysterious galaxies far bigger than we can even imagine.
While the likelihood of an asteroid striking earth in 2032 seems to be creeping up, we can’t yet tell whether it would aim for London. In the meantime, less life-threatening, more playful asteroid-inspired, glowing boulders have been installed around the fountain in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. A celebration of London’s nightlife, at a time when it is under threat from licensing laws and the cost of living crisis, this piece emits excerpts of tracks by bands like Pussy Riot, The Avalanches, Mirrored Fatality, and even an unreleased track by Massive Attack.
“Piccadilly Un:Plugged was one way for me to bring the nightlife community, nightlife workers to the forefront of the narrative,” explained Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, who has long been an advocate for protecting youth cultures and nightlife as a form of self-expression.
Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian, Piccadilly Un:Plugged in central London March 6-8, 2025. Image courtesy of Art After Dark/PA Media.
Amazingly, these audio clips are being bounced off the moon’s surface thanks to new technology known as Moon bounce, or Earth-Moon-Earth communication (EME), which allows us to send radio signals between two locations on earth by using the moon as a natural satellite. The signal penetrates about three meters into the moon’s crust, and any stray extraterrestrial static that is picked up is being incorporated into the audio to create a unique “lunar soundscape,” an effect that the artist described as “distorted” and “alien.”
Just a stone’s throwaway, in Leicester Square, late night wanderers will see the vivid blue luminescence of two U.V.-activated, inflatable Schrödinger’s Cats, one of which is as tall as a double-decker bus. Grouped with a flask of poison and a hammer, these sculptures are a mischievous reference to the famous physics thought experiment conducted by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935.
Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian, Piccadilly Un:Plugged in central London March 6-8, 2025. Photo: Nick Ballón.
Ben Hayoun-Stépanian hopes that the installation will encourage the public to set their imaginations free, and described Piccadilly Un:Plugged as a “decolonial project” that is attempting “to shift away from the patriarchal systems of reference that we have been fed since the Industrial Revolution.” This has been the impetus for her to work with women, queer, and trans artists in particular.
“The future of space doesn’t have to be white,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be like a render from SpaceX. It can be like giant cats. It can be like giant blobs that look like extraterrestrial rock made of iridescent pattern.” She added: “It’s extremely exciting to show this work in a free public context because, a lot of my work has always been about accessibility and make complex ideas and themes accessible.”
Visitors who feel inspired by the art to do some otherworldly exploring of their own should seek out one of the many Unistellar telescopes that have also been temporarily installed across London’s West End. The full program of events can be found via Art After Dark.
.