Charles van Otterdijk - Boiler Room
For his project ‘Boiler Room’, Charles van Otterdijk withdrew from the art world for years to delve into the world of Dutch drug laboratories. He now returns for the first time, and with an installation based around his broad research into the illegal, and often not harmless production of synthetic drugs.
Largest production sites
The southern Netherlands has become one of the world's largest production sites for synthetic drugs. At the same time, Southeast Brabant is also one of the most important research and production sites for the high-tech industry in Europe. According to a conservative estimate by Tilburg University, the sales value of ecstasy and amphetamine produced in the Netherlands alone is at least as high as the annual turnover of European tech company ASML.
The artist himself grew up in the Peel region on the border between North Brabant and Limburg, an area where in the past many labs could be found for the production of anabolic steroids, first for livestock and later also for human use. Currently, the area is considered a major production site for ecstasy, and crystal meth is booming.
Production of drugs
Van Otterdijk's new project began during the Trump era, after he reread Aldous Huxley's still very urgent classic ‘Brave New World’. In the book, children are born and raised in laboratories, but the laboratory is also a place where recreational drugs, called ‘Soma’, are produced to keep the population happy. For years, the artist visited drug labs that were still in operation. In one of these labs, he happened to see a room where young people were being trained in drug production. At about the same time, Van Otterdijk read about a gang that had robbed many ATMs through so-called missing trader robberies, especially in Germany. When rolling up this gang, better known as the Audi gang after the make of the getaway car the gang used, an instruction shed was discovered where people could practice blowing up ATMs. The shed was equipped with a real ATM for this purpose. The ‘instruction lab’ for the production of synthetic drugs that the artist had seen became the guideline for his new project. Van Otterdijk shows photos from some labs and lab equipment developed and produced by himself that the artist could eventually use to start an instructional lab for synthetic drug production. The first results can now be seen at West The Hague.
