I et sammentræf, der desværre føles mere Dicksk end Ballardsk, har jeg haft “Video killed the radio star” kørende i hovedet på det sidste. Det er sikkert, fordi denne video, der viser, hvad en algoritme kan gøre alene udstyret med to billeder, har kørt sine runder:

Sammentræffet er, at det viser sig, at sangen er inspireret af en JG Ballard-novelle ved navn “The Sound-Sweep”. Det fortæller produceren Trevor Horn:

Horn is fascinated by technology partly for the dehumanising impact it has on society. “Me and my friends were obsessed with a song called Warm Leatherette by the Normal, which is based on [JG Ballard’s novel] Crash. The opening scene in the book features a head-on car crash where the guy is looking at a woman whose husband is between them, dead on the bonnet of the car. They are trapped in the smashed-up cars, facing each other, and that’s the most incredible image. Ballard was a big inspiration at the time – Video Killed the Radio Star came from a Ballard story called Sound Sweep in which a boy goes around old buildings with a vacuum cleaner that sucks up sound. I had a feeling that we were reflecting an age in the same way that he was.”

Via Lithub.