Reading from Technicolor yesterday (for 651), I ran across this bit on
Juan Atkins, producer with
Cybotron
and key figure in the emerging techno scene in the early 1980s. From an
essay by Ben Williams called "Black Street Technology: Detroit Techno and the
Information Age":
Davies and Atkins had met in a "future studies" class at Washtenaw
Community College in Ypsilanti, which Atkins attended in order to study data
processing after reading a Giorgio Moroder album sleeve that describe d the
sequencers the Italian producer had used to create his metronomic disco epics.
After realizing he didn’t need to be able to program computers to use
electronic instruments, Atkins dropped the course, but not before encountering
the work of Alvin Toffler. In his book The Third Wave, Toffler
articulated America’s impending transition to a postindustrial, high-tech
economy in a distinctly utopian manner; in the process, he also popularized
many of the most enduring myths of what is now known as "the new economy."
(157)