ABSTRACT
This chapter explores quotation as a material at first separately from, and then alongside, the idea of ‘material’ as an abstract concept, and relate this to the concept of the ‘exform’. It describes the distinction between the ‘“original” material that coming from Western appropriations/representations become blurred’. Michael Finnissy’s and Newman’s works can be considered in counterpoint with Nicholas Bourriaud’s concept of the ‘exform’; their materialism could be described as a ‘generalised decentering’ of the sources that they draw upon, which finds parallels in Bourriaud’s thoughts about the avant-garde, aesthetics, and politics. In Finnissy’s work, quotations and source materials might be thought of as transforming elements; the dialogue of materials and their affects assumes the role of formal processes in tonal music. Such aleatory materialism might be identified in both Finnissy’s and Newman’s work. Moreover, the sources that Finnissy and Newman engage with ideology as well as history.
