Amar Ediriwira
Is Boiler Room dead? No, it’s evolving. And helping club culture to recover in the pandemic – taking it step by step. The Creative Director and beautiful mind that is Amar, gives us private insights on how „Galang“ rocks his core, what nature does to his mind and how he pushes things forward for the well-renowned music platform.
Since NTS took over the hype music scene BoilerRoom is not at top of things right now - what are future plans for the format? What are we going to experience - how is the format going to evolve?
Boiler Room and NTS are like siblings. There’s always been a lot of exchange between the two organisations since their origins. It’s not a competition.
The question of format is a good one. The original format as I see it is about throwing sweatbox events with local artists and broadcasting those moments to an audience around the world. That format is great, it doesn’t need to change. Some of the best stuff we’ve done, for example the Palestine broadcast and documentary in 2018, has been powerful because we’ve engaged deeply with people on the ground. If anything, Boiler Room needs to focus on that original remit: working with and supporting local music scenes.
What have you been doing before becoming the new creative director of Boiler Room?
I joined Boiler Room in 2017 to expand programming into film and moving image, which then evolved into its own dedicated sub-platform, 4:3. The platform shows a mix of documentaries, artist filmsand music videos –both on our web player and in cultural spaces like clubs, galleries and cinemas. Before Boiler Room, I worked for the arts company The Vinyl Factory / 180 Strand and before that (in a former life!) I was a maths teacher in a state school near Heathrow airport in west London.
How will Boiler Room fit within the corona pandemic and the resulting problems for the club culture at the moment?
The pandemic has exposed that the existing infrastructure only works for a handful of commercial DJs and major musicians. Once you strip away gigs and touring, the rest of the industry is left in rubble. Over the past six months we’ve been trying to help club culture recover: we awarded financial grants to twenty music collectives around the world, we partnered with Apple Music to compensate all artists involved in a DJ stream, we’re working on clothing collections designed in full by artists, and we have an upcoming project, System Restart, that invests in some of the most vital music communities –their artists, collectives, venues –as they map the tentative next steps for rebuilding their local scene.
But it’s important to stress that the situation we find ourselves in now is a dry-run for what may well become an avalanche of future pandemics, border controls, climate change and whatever else lies ahead. And I think Boiler Room must play an important role in helping to build a robust ecosystem that supports artists in years to come.
What inspires you the most at the moment?
I’ve become occupied with audio as an emancipatory medium. Our world is bombarded by visual rhetoric and digital image that is financialised. I’m working on a new research and radio project called NOINDEX with the filmmaker Clayton Vomero that seeks to create an alternate visual language; one that dismantles the language of commerce that pervades film, art, and music; one that replaces the passive nature of watching with the active nature of imagining.
What is your most favourite thing to do after waking up: do you have rituals to start your day right?
I take a long walk through the marshes and canal system near my house. It’s a simple morning ritual but it does wonders for my mental and physical health. I’m also trying to walk as a way of doing meetings.
What gives you hope?
My cat just gave birth to five kittens. Helping deliver them and now watching them grow is giving me hope in an otherwise bleak world!
What gives you anxiety?
Social media and anxiety are a power couple.
If you were a track or tune: which one would you be - and why?
MIA’s “Galang”. The mix of language, the civil war references, the hypnotic beat, the dancing, the outfits... it rocks my life so hard I can’t even describe it.
interview FRANCIS SALVATOR
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