The first ever international academic conference on Kraftwerk will take place at Aston University on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22, January 2015.
STOP PRESS: Former Kraftwerk band member Wolfgang Flür will attend the conference, reading from his memoirs and hosting a Q&A session
Kraftwerk have long been recognised as major pioneers of electronic music. The group attracted keen interest particularly in the UK, where their innovative sound had a decisive influence on the development of 1980s synth pop. While the announcement in 2009 of Florian Schneider’s departure from the core team of Hütter/Schneider initially suggested an end to the band, the now solely Hütter-led group has since made a stunning return to public attention.
Extensive touring attracted considerable audiences who, in many cases, were exposed to the band’s shows for the first time. The recent full move to 3D stage projections took their shows – once defined by Hütter as a succession of Musikgemälde (musical paintings) – to a new visual level. It prepared Kraftwerk for a string of appearances at international museums and leading art institutions, where, over the course of eight evenings each, they played retrospectives of their catalogue. These residencies in venues such as MoMA, Tate Modern and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in the week before the conference, have confirmed Kraftwerk’s position as major exponents of contemporary German art. Their unique standing in the twenty-first century underscores the band’s promise given in the 1986 song Techno Pop: “Es wird immer weiter gehen / Music als Träger von Ideen” (It will carry on from here / Music, the carrier of ideas).
While Kraftwerk’s recent activity rekindled interest in the band – as evidenced by David Buckley’s 2012 biography and the volume edited by Sean Albiez/David Pattie (2011) – there still remain many areas to be explored and many established views to be questioned. For example, a critical appreciation of their conceptual art or the contextualisation of the band in the wider framework of German cultural history are needed. To do justice to the many-facetted aspects of their œuvre and their artistic ‘corporate identity’ as a group of “sound researchers”, a pronounced interdisciplinary approach will provide the methodological framework to the conference. Kraftwerk specialists from Britain, as well as Finland, Austria, the Netherlands and the US, will present papers dealing with the band's music and the impact it has had on other artists.
The highlight of the event will be an appearance by former Kraftwerk drummer Wolfgang Flür who will speak about his time in the band and take audience questions. There will also be an AV presentation by DJ Rusty Egan who introduced Kraftwerk to Britain at the infamous Blitz Club and was also a former member of Visage (Fade To Grey).
Registration for the conference is now open via the online form HERE. Please note that all attendees need to register regardless of payment option.
After completing the online registration form, please pay your conference fees using the payment links below. Your registration is not complete until you have paid the fee.
The conference fees are:
£20 for external visitors
£10 for non-Aston students/postgrads/PhD candidates
Please note that all free places for Aston staff, students and alumni are now full.
Please click on one of the payment links above and follow the steps. click here
Full Programme:
Kraftwerk Konferenz - Aston University, Birmingham
Organised by Dr. Uwe Schütte
Byng Kendrick Lecture Theatre (G11), Main Building, Ground Floor
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
9.00 Registration
9.30 Stephen Mallinder (Brighton/Cabaret Voltaire): Kraftwerk: Modernity and Movement
10.15 David Stubbs (London): The Archaeological Years: Kraftwerk before Autobahn
11.00 David Pattie (Chester): Ralf und Florian, Krautrock and Germany
11.45 Nick Stevenson (Nottingham): Cabaret Voltaire and Dada Modernity
12.30 Concluding discussion
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Melanie Schiller (Groningen): Fun Fun Fun on the Autobahn: Kraftwerk Challenging Germanness
14.45 Hillegonda Rietveld (London): Europe Endless: Geopolitical Retro-futurism?
15.30 Uwe Schütte (Aston): We Are the Robots! On the Cultural-Historical Origins of the Man-Machine
16.15 Tea/Coffee Break
16.30 Wolfgang Flür (Düsseldorf/ex-Kraftwerk): I Was A Robot. Reading, panel discussion and Q&A
19.00 Kraftwerk Disco @ The Electric Café (Aston's Students Union Hall)
Thursday 22 January 2015
9.00 Pertti Grönholm (Turku): Nostalgia For The Modern. Re-Imagining the Past Futures in the Concept of Kraftwerk
9.45 Johannes Springer (Osnabrück): Kraftwerk and the Cultural Studies of Cycling
10.30 Ulrich Adelt (Wyoming): Moving Up: Kraftwerk and 'kosmische Musik'
11.15 Tea/Coffee break
11.30 Rusty Egan (London/Visage) presents…
13.00 Lunch
14.15 Heinrich Deisl (Vienna): Searching for Modernity: Socio-historical perspectives on techno music and »das Deutsche«. (Kraftwerk – Wolfgang Voigt – Dopplereffekt)
15.00 Alexei Monroe (London): Trans-Slovene Expressions: Kraftwerk on the Sunny Side of the Alps
15.45 Alexander Harden (Surrey): Kraftwerk and the Issue of Post-Human Authenticity
16.30 Concluding discussion
17.00 Departure
Aston University,
Birmingham, B4 7ET
