A brand new museum dedicated to electronic music called Our House has opened in Amsterdam. The museum exhibits a large number of artefacts that tell the history of electronic music over six different exhibition spaces. With a total of 15 installations that curators have put together, the museum will be one of very few around the world that is entirely devoted to a particular genre of music.
In a statement issued by the forthcoming museum, the space that Our House will occupy will be a former music venue, an electronic music club known as iT. This location on Amstelstraat, in the heart of the city, will mean that the museum is sited in what was one of the earliest dance music clubs in Europe, a pioneer of the style in the city. Referred to as a contemporary museum of electronic music culture, a website for Our House has already been established. Offering an insight into what visitors will be able to expect, the website states that attendees will be invited to express their most personal and pivotal memories about electronic dance music (EDM) with thousands of like-minded fans. The website also says that the museum is intended to be a place where people will be able to share their love for a type of music that ‘speaks to the heart’.
An Evolving Sound
According to one of the museum’s co-founders, Jeroen Jansen, each of the exhibitions will document how EDM evolved from its early days to what it is today. This will mean taking visitors through a series of installations that will mean being able to experience the feeling of what the earliest beats of electronic music felt like when the genre was up and coming. “With in excess of 150 international artists, we have been working on the realisation of this collection for the last two years,” Jansen said. He went on to add that it was not just EDM artists who had contributed material to the museum but promoters, audio producers, curators, DJs, operators and other creatives, as well.
Among the collection that visitors will be able to see are some of the first commercially available drum machines – such as the iconic Roland’s TR-808 – that were such a big part of early EDM recordings. In addition, the museum will feature turntables and what is being billed as interactive vinyl players that museum-goers will be able to get their hands on. As well as some of the technology that was used in the production of EDM in the 1980s and 90s, the museum will have numerous photo archives, documents and flyer galleries on display to highlight electronic music in different contexts. The curators behind the first installations at the museum have also been asked to think about displays that will offer a suggestion of what might be in store for dance music fans in the future.
Among the various exhibits, one installation will be named ‘The Culture Ride’. According to Jansen, this will constitute a 4-D experience for visitors. It will feature contributions from well-known EDM artists like Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren and Charlotte de Witte, among others.