in the 1950s and also the sampling of modern techno music. This potential for the future is demonstrated in 1998 by a CD intended as a tribute, «Weekend Remix,» containing various remixes of old sound material by DJs and electronic musicians, including Lippok Robert and his group To Rococo Rot (see the text by Lippok). [17] This places Ruttmann at the central intersection point of three development lines: the artistic search for visual music, the media-technical coupling of image and sound and finally the transfer of avant-garde developments into mainstream culture(see text by Diedrich Diederichsen).

In 1930, Ruttmann's motto was: «Everything audible from all over the world becomes material.» [18] Seven years later, in his «Credo» on the future of music, John Cage predicted: «I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard. Photoelectric, film, and mechanical mediums for the synthetic production of music will be explored.» [19] Ruttmann's «Weekend» is the finale for visual music in

the 1920s, while Cage is laying the foundations for the intermedia art of the 1950s/60s. Thus Ruttmann and Cage have little in common artistically except that they change from being a painter and a musician respectively into media artists because they follow a logic of technical and aesthetic development and foresee the scope of its effect. But it was not until over half a century later that these avant-garde ideas became part of mainstream culture: «Techno shifts the boundary between noise and music into the infinite nothing of being no longer perceptible,» wrote the pop theorist Ulf Poschardt in 1995.

Electronic media art in the 1950s and 60s

The 1920s avant-garde remained curiously without impact, in fact was forgotten about, as the example of Ruttmann shows particularly vividly. [21] It was not until the 1950s and 60s that those ideas are taken up again, first in New Music, and then in fine art. The electronic audio-visual media made this possible. In the early 20th century it was mainly ideas from fine art that were carried over into music, but now music takes over the