Nelly Ben Hayoun

0:04[Applause]

0:14the university the underground is a postgraduate University it provides a master of arts degree set over two years the tuition is free covered by a nonprofit Foundation that supports the university we're looking for Creative soldiers that can infiltrate the power structures of digital scientific and other ecosystems and modify them through music film design theater practices and politics our aim is to teach students how to engineer change and design experiences and events to support social dreaming action and po shifts Within These institutions the University of the underground is now selecting 15 students the deadline to apply is the 1st of April apply now at University ofthe underground.

0:58Org boom I guess that's it yes bour bonjour everyone I guess we are here to speak about the University of the underground but before I get into that I thought I would give you a bit of a warning so I mean usually I always. Actually apologize for my French accent but I was going to say one day pray brexit I'm actually going to reclaim that very strong French accent of mine currently here in the European UK let enjoy it all together.

1:32This is it.

1:36This is prose article 50 let's try and make sure that. Actually the University of the underground is going to be working actively on that article 50 be sure that we'll be working on it straight from the underground all the way above and eventually one of our students will make it to become the next number 10 right.

1:50So anyway I ran a practice n b in studio in London since nine nine years and as far as I know I always always have been teaching and practicing at the same time and one of the one that really believe that if you want to teach design you might as well have a practice that is fully active so we've been working really actively on defining the design of experiences what we do is we design extreme experience for you to create Dark Energy in your kitchen sink yes we do that to get you know to expand the thrill of you know volcano erupting in your living room working with European Space Agency oh my God this is it to actually give you a full rocket LIF of experiencing a sonic boom in the midst of your bathroom or even having you know work with NASA and the city Institute the search for extraterrestrial intelligence to actually get these people here the International Space Orchestra to sing along together the difficulties to be an astronaut so we do all of these things and as you can see we work a lot with public institution Federal governments the United Nation the FEMA this is one of our latest film in which we work with the Nation to actually tell you a bit more about you know who are the people who are there if an asteroid is here to impact what shall we do anyway we do all of these things I'm kind of like just you know kind of wrapping it up there going in places like this and eventually going deep down in the underground which is the topic of today's right we do know a bit of the underground since we went deep down and minus 2 kilometer to look for warms of hir yes people in the underground there is like life here and there is this life that.

3:29Basically can surve surve anything and they are called the WMS of Hell believe it or not this microorganism that you can find down there.

3:34Anyway a big part of what we do is also the hammering technique which is also you know. Basically making sure that a no is never a no and always being turned into a yes and that's pretty much how we have set up the University of the underground we didn't stop when people told us okay well.

3:50This is going to be complicated that's not going to be an easy task we knew it was going to be difficult but we like to work out the politics and one of these things and all of the kind of the working with we've we've been doing for the past 10 years and also stitching heavily to all around the places made us. Actually believe that. There is a place for total bombardment and it might well be in the underground I mean we like to think about total bombardment in the way that we have about 50 different job for anything we do but you know in the case of the University of the underground all of this mixed together made that so University Of Z underground came about because obviously you know we do a lot of work with public institution we do a lot of work in universities and teaching to students and we felt that to some extent there was a link that was missing there.

4:33And we wanted to kind of like bring this back. And we talk about it in this term like we talk about in term of social dreaming and how social dreaming need to be you know reinjected into public institution and the way we have designed them because think about it you know the NHS was done in a way that it was there to cure or support people to be cured or to support healthare right. So really you know important dream there in place how can we make sure that everybody has access to it.

4:59But then of course things have kind of like been let down with through the bureaucracy and the politics right. So how can we re embed that into this public institution. And we believe that social dreaming is actually the next step towards social actions and we also of course speak a lot about institution because we work with institutions and we will make sure that our students are two years a May right first year you.

5:22Actually work with five different institution the second year the student pick their own institution so maybe one of our student are going to go and hack their way into the Fox Studios maybe become the next CEO of the fox design a new way to think about narrative and how narrative are being communicated to member of the public and we speak about that in term of design of experience so it's a very pre you know precultural pre-disciplinary you know curriculum and like I said based in the underground we are based in the urban space deep down we are the Rats of the city pretty much. And it bring together all of these different practice critical design theatrical practices so you will be taught about theater in the University of the underground you better perform well to hack your way inside these public institutions film practices how you can use it music practices performance of politics and how to play it around and there is really three reason why we created it and actually when you start to look at any public institution right the way that the Tate function the way that any public institution or cultural institution sorry function you always have this system in place where you have 80% coming from philanthropy and funders and supporters and 20% coming from the government so what we thought is what if we were to create a nonprofit Foundation which is said outside of the University that. Actually will support the student to have access to free tuition because let's face it if you want to do a postgraduate it costs a fortune so it's about the time that we try to think about different ways that we can support the Young Generation to actually have access to postgraduate studies right.

6:50So we actually came up with this model you know we are going to experiment with it it might not work to 80% and 20% but we are going to experiment around that what I can say very prly is all of our students have access to their education tuition free so they don't have to pay for them you know most jent as well to create a program like this because we felt that when it comes to design and the way we think about design as well we you know very unlikely will you get some place where you're being told well.

7:20Actually you can be a designer but you can also be a director you can also become a mythologist you can also make your own job because let's face it we are in a time where you know you could basically become the next radio top maker and kind of like come up with your own job title and your own you know job descri description and hack your way in these spaces so we support cultural entrepreneurship we have a curriculum that also support this multifaceted role where you get access to all of these different discipline all mixed up together so pretty chaotic let's put it this way and you know must gent as well for us to create a network of dreamers of the day yes there is a lot of us. And I'm sure that a lot of you here are also these dreamers of the day we are people that you know we dream with open eyes we are the dangerous people the one that makes the dreams come true right.

8:07So we are here to actually create that Network. And that's what we do with the University of the underground we start in Amsterdam and London.

8:15But we are going to grow and you will find us in every single City eventually down the line and be sure that at one point one of our students is going to become the next president I truly believe in that and just to keep on going I mean a bit you know.

8:30I mean I think it's very important to reink this notion of myth right back in 1957 we already talking about myth with someone called Roland Bart who is a sociologist and he was saying that we were living in a world of myth where from the Visage of you know the face of gabo is never smiling to this car you know everything was kind of like a sort of a cliche of itself but what the mythologist was doing back you know at least what BART was depicting was that the mythologist were quite dangerous because he was actually revealing our structure into the language and the way we use language and what we are trying to think about us in the University of the underground is how you know to some extent this role the mythologist role how can we ourselves and the students themselves of course you know reveal basically these meanings that have been hidden because of the bureaucracy that these meanings that we don't understand this language that have made really Opa to the public how can we actually make sure that we reveal them.

9:26So we can actually modify this power structure that have been established for the past 100 years so a lot of it has to do with language and in the University of the underground you learn about language and you learn how to play with it and use it in meaningful way so you can become this intelligent agent navigating artificial system we do have xcia agents as well teaching you we do have people that are going to train you quite affirment and nothing will have been possible without this incredible team which is our Advisory Board which are basically a part of the the foundation because we are set as a foundation so as any charity you know you have an Advisory Board and we have incredible people which again reflects you know on the uh the multidisciplinary aspect of the program where you have people of course coming from the communication end with the c research search for extr terial intelligence they know a fair bit about extr terial intelligence I can see you what is she saying extral but like I said I'm not going to apologize for my French accent today so Dave girls working from Max wi is and independent publisher I'm not going to go through all of them but mat you also have people coming from the tech world you know obviously Airbnb and then incredible Excel recording yes Phil is somewhere around here Philly who is a creative director of Excel recording who actually going to parties 20 years working for this incredible independent label which has been you know represent Beck and all these incredible artists so definitely look them up you all know them.

10:58Anyway you know.

11:00But that's the thing so yes so we have also we transfer on board who I've been working with for quite a while new school you know like all all our partner in crime Ravi from you know interactive Africa as well and most lately we've just sown speeches Chris that if you don't know pites you should know her I mean she knows a sing or twoo about the underground scene she's a cult leader really she created the Midnight Mass from the underground she ran act the over picture show every evening basically in San Francisco and she's going to join us as well to develop that old Counter Culture that is going to be the University of the underground and we have an incredible team of guest tutors so we do a differentiation between guest tutors and our tutors guest tutors mainly come for a talk or two or workshop and then of course the tutors are there on a permanent basis so here is a few of our roster if I could put it this way ranging from polare in the you know the graphic design work in pentagram to D is a poet to janovic with a feminist to Babar raimov a space architect to Rashia Armstrong who is more in experimental architecture and she will be telling us a bit more about how we are going to assess experimental action of our students to you know Savages Fay and and Nixie who you probably know from the Ben will be also teaching and eventually they really want to work with Adam Curtis if Adam Curtis is around we definitely want you in as well T glow at Google you know Kate and so on I mean anyway they are pretty incredible and the teacher again range from people like Shon who is you know an opera director who's going to be teaching students every basically every day one hour of theatrical practices to actually get them really much in the go on how they can function with public institutions to Nina pop who is well known for doing a lot of reenactment and film making and has been there for quite a while Lauren who is working more into politics and Design Tom grol with running an architectural practice here DSA DHA and Mariana was working at the VNA and work a lot with fictions and turn actually own a trademark to the world Allah so if you were wondering who owns it. That's this guy so we believe in terms of course we are all about change right we are about getting our student to understand that through the use of these experiences they can modify the power structure inside this public Institution.

13:29And so they have to you know change contact time right. So even though this is a very urgent program that you know we need to kind of see out there and make sure that we can support the Young Generation to actually have access to this to to classes and to postgraduate students then it has to be on the long-term basis so we have started this program the 100 years of education where we ask all our funding Partners to actually join on a 100 years basis so we are not here just for the sake of it we'll still be there in 100 years I might not be alive but we will have someone else running the thing.

14:02And then you know like I said you know our funding Partners all going for the 100 years period of time. So in Amsterdam we are with 100 years in the Martin which is a nightclub we are in the underground I mean as you can see this is what the space look like right now before the student come in but we are going to basically like you know make it a very lovely boost so you can have your podcast you can actually do movies you can do everything from the underground deep below all the way to the top experiencing all the scales of the social ladder and then.

14:29Basically. And we work as well at the village underground so we are most of the time in Amsterdam and about three months in the year we will be in the Village Underground in London.

14:37So this is the way it works and most recently actually we receive this really interesting thing so you know we obviously have social media I mean obviously we do use social media so University underground if you want to check it up.

14:52And then this you know we received this really unique application l and I really wanted to share it with you because we all thought we were like okay what is this and that was actually this chap here Jack where is he jack who send us this video which is basically his application to the University of the underground so I have to say here that it doesn't mean he got in the University of the underground so I will recommend you all to apply right now remember the deadline is on the 1st of April but Jack has done something very interesting which is basically to you know we know who he is now I mean ly so think out of the box on how you're going to apply for the University of the underground because ultimately there will be a lot of you.

15:36And we only pick 15 so do think with your skill set and do think with your hands and your brain of course and propose us something a bit different from Jack but I mean let's have a look to what he's done my is Jack ♪

16:01I am process concept D and want to make this my profession here's a list of tools I use and things that I like to produce images I Can't Get Enough enjy them even more than they move wa what a show real typography symbols that make up the everyday the visual language with possibilities that are pretty endless I want to join the univers of the Underground to develop my practice create movement and action through experimental challenging out of the box thinking right. So when we saw that amazing right do mini G in we still need to see the application.

16:45But I have to say that was pretty impressive so I gave a talk on Friday and guess who was there Jack Jack was there. And I thought you know since you guys you know you're here and Jack is here and he's alive then we thought we might as well just invite him and actually gave him a really difficult task because massive Round of Applause for him yeah yeah yeah he's still not in yet but he's making his way straight into the underground but I mean what I will say is like Jack when I saw him on Friday I thought I was going to raise the bar a bit more so I said to him jack you know.

17:24This is great but we want more we want to see a full album by Tuesday right yeah yeah what did you say at that point Jake you were like I like I can do that I can try and get something done yeah actually it was quite funny you became very pale I remember you became very pale so tell us about what this is what is this so let's show us a bit about so you made this instrument obviously yeah this is my homemade fence post SL CIO sk1 guitar with a bolt right here yeah it's just like kind of like a coming together of two instruments though I like to play so I thought why not make some music from it and show us a bit like show show us the gear show us the instrument a bit here's some sounds you get them a bit like yeah know it's got everything it's got drum machine but then you combine that with this. And that's like a that's like a band in one go so there you go that's a my God we have a full B with it okay. So and so Jack you you.

18:29Actually did do the challenge a bit I mean I put some notes together and kind of tried to get a song yeah. So it's kind of this is kind of the start of like what could be I don't know one track on the album but so and this is about question time I think this is working isn't it yeah is this is this working do you want do you want to give us do you want to do a try like I mean maybe a you guys can sing along because you can see the lyrics right. So tell us I mean this is not British got talent this is it is at Got Talent right here.

19:03But I mean tell us I mean yeah. So how because I remember I did ask you I said Jack make me a song about an institution and how you will work with this institution right. So what did you pick and well I was just watching question time last night because obviously that whole brexit thing is happening and I was just like is this really kind of a way to get involved in politics I don't really think it is it's kind of just a meaningless debate because nothing is really happening post the question time. And it's just yeah it's no longer kind of an option to be apathetic about it you have to find other ways of being politically active and one way is to address question time and how people think that it's actually kind of progressive or meaningful debate because it really isn't good yeah to kind of get involved in do you want do you want to see yes I mean how does that even sound the first line Sorry I'm like pushing you but you know I would like you guys yeah okay.

19:59So maybe you can sing along with him is that possible can we have a bit of come on guys support him I mean he's like you know the guy is putting his aspiration in in the next two days is pretty he's under pressure I force him to come here you know. I mean okay all right let's so ready you're going to start with the first line right is it is that what I'm going to do okay I don't know tell me I want to know tell us it's your show I say the first like two lines okay you want to say the first I'm just going to say is question time. And institution David di would like think it is and that's that I'm going leave it that. That's a minimalist approach we love it great thank you so much Jack thank you to all of you do apply thank you [Applause]

20:44Jack that is it first of April is a deadline don't miss it we only pick 15 student until 2019 so you know if you miss this round then nothing until 2019 so do go ahead send your PS to us and let's walk the next Revolution deep down in the underground okay thank [Applause]