In late October, Boiler Room descended on Taipei. Returning to the city for the first time since 2018, for one night, the London based-platform—touted as “connecting local dance floors to the wider world”—cracked open the hazy basement of FINAL, the beating heart of the city’s clubland, for all of the internet to see. The electronic-music powerhouse is known for packing dancefloors globally with uniformed techno heads elbowing for the chance to give the cameras their best impression of debauchery. In Taipei, we were all too happy to play along. Indeed, the night was a who’s who of local flyer staples, many of whom came up during Taiwan’s “zero Covid” heyday—one of the longest-lasting policies in the world, and a time when Taipei played only for itself. Yet two years on, in a city thrust toward global attention by increasingly dire geopolitical dynamics, the scene has reverberated with movements and exhibitions that navigate this tension between homegrown and global sensibilities.