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Nelly Ben Hayoun's Micronations Revolution or "Experiential Futurism"

By Lisa Smith - April 1, 2011

in Object Culture

Leaving the marble pool. Photo by Nick Ballon

Designer, performer and now director Nelly Ben Hayoun (featured in our Starting Out series) has just completed the production of Micronations Revolution, "a series of interactive experiences and experiments" hosted by Shunt in London. The two-day program comprised a series of designed interactions exploring imaginary geopolitics—hence the Micronations moniker.

Over March 11th and 12th, the Shunt Lounge, located under the London Bridge, was broken up into four imaginary nations, each with a different sequence of workshops and performances. For example, in "Sea-Salt Park," scuba instructors gave diving lessons (without water). In the "Marble Kingdom," citizens floated on a pool filled with 60,000 marbles. "Ice Break Mountain" was home to a speed dating event in Yeti territory, and simple machines were manufactured and auctioned off nightly in "Iron Scape."

"An Extract from A Declaration of Principals and Intentions," by Dot Howard. Photo by Ludovic des Congets.

The project (with an attitude that lives somewhere between Medieval Times and Maywa Denki) is inspired by Alfred Jarry's pataphysic philosophy, or "the science of imaginary solutions," which parodies modern science through the production of nonsense.

We love the intense scope of this experiential production, and the photos demonstrate its success, fun and originality. Bruce Sterling's description sums it up: "I'm hard put to describe what is going on here, but it sounds rather like 'experiential futurism.'"

Read more about Micronations Revolution here, and much more of Nelly's other work at her website.