Art After Dark: Piccadilly Un:Plugged

Award-winning eco-feminist artist and designer of experiences Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian Ph.D., founder of NASA’s International Space Orchestra is set to transform London’s West End into an accessible cosmic playground with a fusion of surrealist public art and space science.

For free nights, 'Piccadilly Un:Plugged' curated by Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian invites you to look beyond the city’s skyline and into the vast cosmos. With perfect timing to concide with the upcoming partial solar eclipse, get a unique chance to connect with the universe.

Expect iridescent asteroid-sized moon rocks to land in Piccadilly Circus, while two towering inflatable sculptures inspired by Schrödinger’s famous quantum physics paradox – nicknamed the ‘Cats’ – will be positioned close by.

That’s not all – using cutting-edge interstellar technology, recordings made in the West End and the heartbeats of the artist’s Armenian family will journey 768,800km to the moon and back. These recordings will be received by the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and broadcast back to Piccadilly Circus, creating an otherworldly soundscape that connects Earth with the cosmos.

London will become a portal to explore the wonders of the night sky during ‘galaxy season’, a time when distant galaxies are at their most visible. Guided by scientists, and representatives from the SETI Institute (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence), the public will use UNISTELLAR’s advanced telescopes to experience breathtaking views of nebulae and planets like Jupiter, joining in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence from iconic West End locations.