Elevator Radio
Elevator Radio ‘core trio’ explain the student-led radio’s inception, their ambitions and are asking for new members!
→ Can you introduce yourself, tell me your roles within Elevator Radio, what it is and how it started?
Nick Monroe-Meares: I’m Nick Monro-Meares, a graduate of Information Design in 2022 and someone who was involved in Elevator radio since its conception. I have a role generously supported by Design Academy Eindhoven to program and coordinate the radio as an alumnus for the academic year. The role started when Head of Communication Raffaela Vandermuhlen saw that they needed someone that could devote their time on a regular basis to help the student's run Elevator Radio.
Guanyan Wu: I’m Guanyan and I am a first year student in Social Design, I too am coordinator and programmer. I help organise workshops, invite speakers for special events like the Big Annual Radio Workshop Week. Specifically my role also includes graphic design, the majority of the graphics you see on our Instagram and other communication channels are conceived by me and sometimes with Nick, we collaborate a lot. Of course music and DJ’ing is a big part of the radio too, we’ve pushed our Elevator Radio trolley to a lot of different locations outside of the school, it inspires a lot more people to get involved.
YP Wang: I’m YP, second year student in Contextual Design, another member of the core members, together we call ourselves the trio, no? Haha. Before coming to Eindhoven I had experience working in an online and also FM university radio in Minnesota. Shout out Carlton College! It seemed pretty natural for me to come join the Elevator Radio. We pushed the trolley out and started playing at the opening ceremony of the Academic Year and during Intro Week, that was our debut as new members started in 2021. I specialise a little bit more with sound engineering thanks to Nick, this consists of plugging cables, making sure the broadcast sounds good and that’s it's well recorded, all that tech stuff, I love it.
NM: I’ll give you a quick chain of events of how it started: Good Times Bad Times radio based in Rotterdam, which was set up by alumni Kirsten Spruit and friends at KABK Jack Bardwell and Benjamin Earl came to the Academy to do a great radio workshop for Information Design in 2020, this resulted in the creation of IDIDIDIDI radio which broadcasted a number of times, even doing a Christmas Special. Kirsten and other alumni Ceola Tunstall-Behrens who is also involved in radio thought that if IDIDIDIDID was so popular among the MA course then why not expand it to involve all the students and topics of DAE. They wrote up a proposal and with the support of Raf De Keninck the radio was born. Each year more developments are made to the radio, one of the best was the Big Annual Workshop of 2021 where a number of music and radio-based workshops happened to introduce the radio to new students, famously there was budget for Rebecca Jochem, Ned Kaar and myself to make the trolley which definitely became the face of Elevator Radio. The rest is history.
→ Your physical space is located on the third floor and you have the nomadic trolley. How does the trolley function as part of Elevator Radio and what do you use it for?
NM: I would say like 80% of the shows and broadcasting stuff happens in this room and then every now and then we take the trolley out. Because it's nomadic, students can also use it for a lot of activist stuff. The trolley is also a team member, it’s Elevator Radios icon. We designed it so it would work like a billboard, the blank plywood sheets provided a surface for stickers or posters.
GW: The trolley was used last year for a protest against the war against Ukraine and then sometimes, some members of the radio use the trolley for their projects. For example, Johanna Denecke from Critical Inquiry Lab used the it during her final presentation in the form of a broadcasting show. There is also Jonah Attalla, a fellow student from the fourth year, who used the trolley during their graduation exhibition on the forth floor, he was broadcasting on the side, interviewing people after they had presented about their projects, playing music, he was using the trolley to activate the space.
“it was mostly students within the Academy who have different talents sharing those talents and building their own community. It's a way to democratise knowledge.”
→ You mentioned the Intro Week and Opening of Academic Year. What other events have you got planned for Elevator Radio?
YP: We just finished our Big Annual Radio Workshop Week. Which was this epic 5 day event, packed with sound engineering, graphic design, show generating, speaker building, and DJ workshops. My favourite one was the speaker building workshop. That was the one led by another fellow student James McCamy. The idea was that people bring him broken and second hand speakers that no longer function, we break them open and use the parts that do work to make new speakers. For me it was the most informative workshop. At the end they connected all the speakers that everyone had built together, creating this massive wall of speakers. We had the feminist collective The Wave from Eindhoven to give a little lecture and then we also had Kirsten, Jack and Ceola who gave another lecture how to start your own radio collective.
GW: It was cool because it was mostly students within the Academy who have different talents sharing those talents and building their own community. It's a way to democratise knowledge. Like YP said because the speakers live in these boxes you don’t see the components inside. They are black boxed. And then once you take them apart and you realise it's actually very easy to understand how it works. This knowledge can be passed on to a lot of other people. It's not too complicated and everyone can do it. That applies to all the workshops that were carried out.
“Its a bit of a joke here but they say that DAE is where you come to graduate as a DJ. I heard they produce more DJ’s than designers.”
→ What else were in the Big Annual Radio Workshop Week?
NM: Well we got some jingles. Louis Möckel from PlusPlusPlus they did a workshop with synthesisers and recording software and equipment and they produced 5 jingles. Which were all pretty wacky and weird. What was cool was that people came that were just interested in music but who didn’t have or couldn't afford the equipment actually came.
GW: We had a graphic workshop too, which meant that everything we produced went back into the space, or in this instance back onto the trolley. For the graphic workshop we made a bunch of tote bags with the Elevator logo. The jingles we made will be used at the beginning of podcasts or radio shows. Of course we will have the chance to use the speakers we produced for other uses. Ultimately, everything that comes from the platform goes back into the platform.
YP: There was also a DJ workshop on Friday, some students just came in with their usb filled with songs and we were teaching them the basics. Its a bit of a joke here but they say that DAE is where you come to graduate as a DJ. I heard they produce more DJ’s than designers.
→ What is the reason people want to become a DJ?
GG: Since I started to DJ it's inspiring to see a lot more women DJ. I started doing DJ’ing because I didn’t think I could, I only ever saw guys doing it. The more of us DJ’ing inspires others to get involved, it shows that I can have this skill and share my music with other people. I’ve also heard some people saying that they want to get involved with Elevator Radio because they’ve heard its one of the few student groups that are led by minority students. Which is inspiring because within this one group you can have different voices and different perspectives.
YP: But also, because it's cool.
“I would love to see radio being introduced into the curriculum. All the workshops that were hosted by Elevator Radio are building students with real practical knowledge that is getting used in the real world."
→ What’s the vision of Elevator Radio, where’d you like to see it go?
YP: We would like to go to festivals, we would like to do something beyond the school, we would like to have a space that people can go inside and broadcast. Basically the same as what we did during the Graduation Show but bigger and better. We had a pre-made hut, which serves the purpose, but it wasn’t the best quality for sound recording and broadcasting. It did create a space in the courtyard in the middle of the Graduation Show that people could be cosy in and listen or join. That's what’s cool about radios in general is that it immediately creates this community wherever it goes, people gather around it.
NM: We are also going the Milan Design Week this year. The radio is collaborating with the Editorial Team at DAE and they want the radio to go out there. To be a representative of the school, we will be creating temporary studio at SaloneSatellite, where we will be producing a week long programme in and around the topic of design and design education. We hope that this will make the radio more visible and that means that more people will appreciate it and it will organically grow.*
YP: We are actively trying to expand the team. So if you’re reading this story, then we are looking for fresh blood. We are looking for more sound engineers because every Thursday broadcast we do need someone who will sit here and engineer for four hours and usually it's us doing it. You can basically be trained as a sound engineer!
NM: I would love to see radio being introduced into the curriculum. All the workshops that were hosted by Elevator Radio are building students with real practical knowledge that is getting used in the real world.
Sound engineering is a universal skill which teaches you about how to record something properly, the printing workshop is about graphic knowledge, or DJ’ing which is again another creative output. At the workshop week there was also lectures but these lectures kept on clashing with the bachelors studios or lectures. I understand that there’s a curriculum and bachelors need to go to their lessons but also i'd really like it if the teachers could see Elevator Radio as a part of the curriculum where students can learn other new skills. Or for it to be included in the core curriculum.
Studio leader of Technogeographies Martina Muzi really likes the radio and last year, she encouraged students to go to the workshop and that’s one of the reasons why Jonah is now so involved in the radio. it is also such a great way to conceptualise and communicate your project if you just condense it into a radio show or podcast.
*This interview was conducted before Milan Design Week, read the report of Elevator Radio’s collaboration with the Editorial Team here