Photo via The Avalanches Facebook Page
Last week, in a stunning reverie of art, music, and the cosmos, Massive Attack, The Avalanches, Pussy Riot, and other esteemed artists transmitted their music to the moon as part of a groundbreaking immersive installation in London. Art After Dark: Piccadilly Un:Plugged, which ran through March 8th at Piccadilly Circus, transformed the heart of the city into a portal for interstellar sound. The project, spearheaded by Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian – founder of NASA’s International Space Orchestra and designer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) – offered a visionary alternative to the billionaire-driven enterprises that cloud contemporary understandings of space exploration. As Dr. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian explained, this was not about extracting resources, but about collaborating with the moon itself, ushering in a future where space exploration serves humanity’s collective aspirations, not its cycles of exploitation.
At the heart of the installation was the romantic yet innovative earth-moon-earth technology that transmitted audio signals to the moon’s surface. There, the frequencies reverberated and were altered by lunar reflections and cosmic interference, before making their way back to Earth, received by the Lovell Telescope at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank. The resulting sounds were a haunting, empyrean rendition of the original compositions, as though the moon had imprinted its own signature to the music.
Among the tracks sent on this interstellar journey was Massive Attack’s hauntingly evocative cover of ‘Everything Is Going According to Plan’ – a blistering Russian psych rock/punk anthem penned by the legendary Yegor Letov in the 1980s, which delivered a scathing critique of the Soviet regime. Originally performed in Russian by Massive Attack in 2013 during a collaboration with filmmaker Adam Curtis, this track has been a simmering gem in the duo’s vaults for over a decade. Now, the trip-hop icons have finally unleashed their tribute to the rebellious spirit of GrOb, Letov’s band, as part of this very installation. This long-awaited release, soaked in history and defiance, adds an extra layer of resonance as it embarks on its extraordinary, otherworldly journey to the moon.
Another sonic rocket was The Avalanches’ 2020 album We Will Always Love You. The Avalanches, thrilled by the concept, remarked, “It’s such an exciting concept to have audio bounced to the moon and back, and to hear the interpretations and alterations that occur along its 768,802 km journey.”
Beyond the transmissions, Piccadilly Un:Plugged offered visitors an array of mesmerizing installations across the West End. Among the highlights were five-meter inflatable neon cats, inspired by Schrödinger’s quantum paradox, and iridescent asteroid-shaped boulders, which broadcast a lunar-inspired soundscape featuring Moses Boyd, Mirrored Fatality, and others. Attendees were also invited to peer through UNISTELLAR telescopes, guided by SETI astronomers, or step into a red telephone box outside The Londoner to make a “call to the moon” via an AI-powered hotline.
The experience culminated on March 8th with the 25-minute screening of Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s film From The Void To The Full, which explored humanity’s eternal drive for discovery, from the deep sea to the farthest reaches of space. This remarkable art installation served as a poignant reminder of how feats of creativity – wholesomely human, and yet bewitchingly celestial—can connect us to something larger than ourselves. Sending music to the moon and receiving it back, altered by cosmic forces, evokes a profoundly spiritual moment—an artistic ritual that brings the vastness of space a little closer to home. In doing so, it reminds us of our place in the intricate fabric of the natural world and the universe at large – a beautiful salve to the miasma of modernity.
View footage of the installations on Nelly Ben Hayoun- Stepanian Studios and The Art of London‘s Instagram pages.
