Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany
My sticky notes from Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany by Uwe Schutte.
Page 4:
The answer is simple: there exists no music of the future today, because there is no longer any such thing as the future. The future, according to [Mark] Fisher, has been cancelled. The historical struggle for a better world has always been driven by the promise of better things to come. [...] Today, when thinking about tomorrow, we see more threat than opportunity [...] How could we possibly imagine building a better future?
Page 22:
Kraftwerk's nostalgic longing for the futures that were never realized is an expression of their hope that artistic potentials of past avant-gardes can be recoded and made productive again in the present.
Page 23:
To make a further parallel with Warhol, the Creamcheese Club would correspond to Max's Kansas City, the preferred hangout of the Warhol entourage, while the Kling Klang studio would be the equivalent to the Factory, where film-makers, designers, pop musicians, actors and artists would meet and collaborate.
Page 53:
Motorik is the musical embodiment of momentum, the thrust of a relentless drive forward.
Page 147:
A quote from The Oxford Handbook to Science Fiction (2014)
"if futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation."
Page 224:
[Joseph] Beuys's aesthetic thinking revolves around his idea of the 'social sculpture.' It's key notion is the idea that art can act as a heeling force for a sick society.