Prada’s ‘Satellites II’ Transforms Hotel Chelsea Into a Retro-Futuristic Refn-Kojima Dream

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A Retro-Futuristic Takeover of the Hotel Chelsea

The Hotel Chelsea, long a sanctuary for counterculture icons, is currently playing host to a high-concept intervention. The collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Nicolas Winding Refn, which first debuted at Prada Tokyo Aoyama last summer, has been reimagined for the New York setting. The space features rooms draped in silver fabric, cloud-print motifs, and a central, glowing UFO command center. Visitors can even interact with Prada-branded vending machines that dispense mystery gifts, including limited-edition cassette tapes. Refn and Kojima, who formed a friendship 16 years ago, have developed a non-verbal creative shorthand despite the language barrier. Their partnership is built on the exchange of visuals and emojis, a process Refn describes as a method of bypassing traditional speech to reach more visceral forms of expression.

“We’ll never actually communicate with words. So, the idea of taking our conversation and recreating it in as many languages as possible was a way to deconstruct how we talk—because it’s really all about purity of emotions.”

Nicolas Winding Refn, film director, via W Magazine

The Intersection of Media and Memory

The exhibition leans heavily into the idea of the screen as a cultural mirror. Throughout the hotel, visitors encounter TV screen motifs displaying the talking heads of the two creators. According to W Magazine, this visual repetition is intended to provoke reflection on the nature of societal romanticization and fear. This focus on the screen and the past brings a specific resonance to the Hotel Chelsea. The building remains synonymous with the ghosts of 20th-century art, from the poetry of Allen Ginsberg to the musical legacies of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. As reported by The Washington Post, the hotel’s history is inextricably linked to figures like Bob Dylan, who is said to have written the track “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” within its walls. The current installation attempts to bridge that historical weight with a contemporary, space-age vision.

“The screen becomes the mirror of our society, but also becomes the mirrors of what we romanticize, what we want to see, what we fear, what we love, what we hate.”

Nicolas Winding Refn, film director, via W Magazine

Beyond the Hotel: A Citywide Satellites Invasion

The influence of Satellites II extends beyond the confines of the hotel. A live-broadcast channel has been established to stream panels, workshops, and performances associated with the project. The programming includes appearances by New York cultural figures such as Lydia Lunch, Grandmaster Flash, and Amanda Gorman, alongside musical performances by Sophie Thatcher. Refn has characterized the opening days of the exhibit as the moment “the Satellites invade Manhattan.” The project’s footprint includes an anime festival screening at the Angelika Film Center, as well as visual installations at Prada’s Broadway Epicenter and the iconic Katz’s Delicatessen. For Kojima, the choice of New York as a canvas was a deliberate challenge to his own creative process.

“For me, New York is art, music, everything. When I want to challenge myself, I think: I should go to New York. It’s almost like a different universe or a different planet. The next installation should be in outer space.”

Hideo Kojima, game creator, via W Magazine As the event concludes this weekend, the collaboration leaves behind a question about the future of immersive art. By utilizing both historic physical spaces and high-tech digital broadcasts, Refn and Kojima have positioned their work not just as a static exhibit, but as an evolving, multi-platform narrative. Whether the next iteration truly moves into the outer space Kojima envisions remains to be seen, but the success of this weekend’s events suggests that the duo’s appetite for large-scale, cross-disciplinary experimentation is only growing.