Karl Bartos live @ Optronica 2005

If you're talking artists always cited by top musos as being hugely influential, you can't get much better than this guy.

Originally a classically trained percussionist and keyboard player, Karl Bartos was a key member of the pioneering German electronic group Kraftwerk, famed for groundbreaking albums such as Man Machine, Trans Europe Express and Computer World. Acknowledged to be one of the most important bands to come out of the 1970s, without them there would have been no hip hop, no house, no ambient music, no electro and even Michael Jackson, with whom they flatly refused to collaborate, would probably have sounded different. Kraftwerk were one of the few groups who've actually changed how music sounds.

Mixing new material with Kraftwerk classics and wittily illustrated on-screen by Cologne VJ artist Karsten Binar, the Bartos live show, with its themes of communication, celebrity and technology, brought classic Teutonic techno-pop with a visual twist to Optronica's second night at the bfi London IMAX Cinema.

Also, in a special Optronica event at the NFT, where the former white-suited robot turned polymath was interviewed by BFI artistic director Eddie Berg, Bartos gave a talk on the development of cultural communication. From the magic of writing to the magic of electronics, and tracing ideas from Plato, Heidegger through to Huxley and Leary, Bartos expounded on how modern media is turning word-centered culture into image-centered culture. Heaaavvvvyyyy dude.

www.karlbartos.com