By Oliver Tearle
In the field of prophetic works of art, Kraftwerk occupies the same space in music as the novelist J. G. Ballard (1930-2009) inhabits in science fiction. Ballard’s short stories of the late 1970s and early 1980s, most notably ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ and ‘Motel Architecture’, foresaw our own world of videocalls, online meetings, internet dating, and much else, several decades before those things became a reality.