Utilitarian electronics: Portrait mit Cage and Stockhausen (Barlow und Kagel sind auch dabei)

This chapter discusses the electronic music of Christopher Fox from a nodal perspective. In a previous article I discussed nodalism as a means of understanding creativity and culture after postmodernism.1 The nodal model enables us to view the composer as a node within a larger network. This network is dynamic and can comprise any other styles, composers, ideas, or, as Richard Dawkins would term them – memes,2 which can be freely drawn together. We may understand Fox as a node within a network of contemporary composers, as well as considering the nodal connections he makes within individual works to other music, art, literature and culture more widely. This model can demonstrate the plurality of sources that Fox draws upon and the startling surface differences that result in his music, while demonstrating a core compositional approach to his music.