Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Kraftwerk: Pop Art, Remembering Florian Schneider

BSA Special Feature: Kraftwerk: Pop Art, Remembering Florian Schneider

They predicted what music would sound like and what the world would look like, fifty years before it happened. Merging man, machine and avant garde theatric sensibilities, these where the young artists were at the forefront of imagining and creating the future while residing inside a completely different one and enduring the overconfident and snide dismissals – later to be followed by the masses.

Over time, with critical embrace by the recognized academic and institutional authorities who were finally catching on decades later, the group itself was transformed in the eyes of global culture as a work of art.

Oh, the influence they have had; Karl Bartos, Wolfgang Flür, Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider. Countless musicians in many genres point to their ground breaking sound for inspiration on thousands of pieces.

Somewhere between the Black Forest and Cologne, the spirit of Kraftwerk swells and speeds and glides and calculates the upcoming curve up above on the Autobahn, this modern classicism sweeping minds and imaginations.

Our thoughts today to the family and friends of Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider, who passed away recently at 73. May all our young men and women who are creating today reach this age, and may they inspire us to imagine a future one.

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