Battle of Babylondon

We thank all those citizens who participated in the performance. Click below to see the Battle in action, and the Portal that transported the audience to the Storyworld.

Portal at the British Library
Battle in Canary Wharf

The Battle of Babylondon was a site-specific, interactive performance staged in association with the upcoming exhibition 'Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it' at the British Library, Fri 20 May 2011 - Sun 25 Sep 2011.

Derived from the 1990 science fiction novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, the performance plunged the audience into the summer of 1855, in an alternate, politically-charged, Steampunk London. The unrest between the New Radicals, the elitist political party in power, and the Anarchists, a motley crew of Luddites and Communists, had reached a fever pitch, and audiences were asked to choose a side to champion, making their way through a series of challenges, missions, and confrontations, in order to determine who would control the city and its fate. This performance took place on Friday, April 15, 2011, on a construction site in Canary Wharf, the dockside location of a key battle scene in The Difference Engine.