John Foxx

JOHN FOXX official website
METAMATIC : Index :
Jonathan Barnbrook :
Metamatic Interview -
October 2019
Metamatic : How familiar were you with John's work and
how did you first meet up with him?
Jonathan : It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say John has

been one of the central creative figures in my life. I
discovered his music with the release of 'Underpass' and
since then his music has been a companion through the
good and bad times of my life. There is something in it
which perfectly coincides with my own vision of the
world. We do seem to have an interest in similar things,
the first thing that attracted me was at that time his use
of synthesisers as a new form of music combined with
something that seemed essentially British, the subjects
he was singing about where far more recognisable to me
than much of the rock music others were listening to. It
had parallels with new sounds from a new heritage by
Kraftwerk, but the basis was entirely different. The
atmospheric, melancholic moments evoked in the music I
identified with more than anybody else I had listened to
and was more appropriate to someone from the UK,
where we didn't have to reinvent ourselves after WW2.
There was also the figure of The Quiet Man, this quest for
anonymity, a figure who seemed to live in the deserted
world which had returned to a more natural order, it was
incredibly beautiful, and as an adolescent it helped me
deal with the terrible self-consciousness and ego you
have at that age - the need to lose myself was possible
reading 'The Quiet Man'. It is also very romantic text, at
the age of eighteen the possibilities of your life are fully in
front of you, and if you can switch for a moment to
someone like The Quiet Man, who has lived, loved,
obviously experienced tragedy but is now reconciled to it
all, it is incredibly comforting. I also found it in other
books, such as 'Steppenwolf' by Hermann Hesse, 'The
Man Without Qualities' by Robert Musil, which became
central to my life too. Finally both his music and writing
provided and escape from the bleakness of my
environment. I grew up on a council estate in Luton, not
the most beautiful of places and the text which talked
about nature taking over and making places beautiful
again was something I wished for too. I do think it's no
coincidence that 'Metamatic' was especially important
into this respect too. It wasn't until I got into JG Ballard
years later I understood more about some of the
atmospheres that I was getting as I walked about from
this album and why they directly connected to me also.
I met John through just being at various events. He is

quite shy but still approachable, and a very generous
open person with his time. I think it was the D.N.A.
exhibition that prompted me to contact him to work on
some possible projects, I could have done it a long time
ago, I think I had to get over myself a bit though first,
move from being a fan to seeing myself as someone who
could compliment the body of work he has done. It took
me being a bit older and maturer to be able to do that. I
have worked with a lot of creative celebrities like Damien
Hirst and David Bowie, but somehow working with John
was a bit more daunting because he had meant so much
to me when I was young.
Metamatic : Did the films Clicktrack [LINK] and A Half-

Remembered Sentence [LINK] which featured on the
D.N.A. DVD already exist, or did you create them
specifically for that release?
Jonathan : They were created specially for this project

and the exhibition that was arranged before it. I was
delighted to be invited by Dennis Da Silva who curated
the exhibition because John has been such a big
influence on me. It did strike me as very strange suddenly
that I had never up until then specifically done a piece of
work about him or his music, maybe because I had felt it
was kind of untouchable, but then it started to feel wrong
that this person who has influenced my creative output
had not been rightly acknowledged in some form. So it
was an enjoyable but difficult task to try and express
some of the meaning he has for me.
Metamatic : The music used for the film Clicktrack is a

random series of samples which John provided to a
music magazine [Future Music] back in the late 1990s.
What was it about that particular 'track' which made you
decide that a video needed to be created to accompany
it?
Jonathan : I really like the fact that 'Clicktrack' wasn't

consciously 'music'. At the time it was just laid down on
tape for possible use. However it still very much has the
essence of the album within the sounds, they actually
differ emotionally from one sound to another. Some are
almost aggressive. Some are melancholic. They all have a
raw feeling which you often don't get with digital sound
and some of John's ideology in it where he was in a
particular state of mind when he was trying to work out
what he was going to do next in his life. I wanted to take it
though and do something entirely new for it that could
only have been done in this age. Using a throwaway
fragment from the past, understanding it, reinterpreting
seemed very much a John Foxx kind of thing to do.
Incidentally it was important that the sound wasn't edited

in any way, all of the hiss and hums, silences are left in
and become natural pauses to change the animation. It
was a real task to create animation which worked on the
irregular sound patterns and rhythms that are in it. I hope
that what I did is a kind of compliment to the album and
shows the emotions and images that the period of Johns
music creates. It was also an incredible amount of work,
maybe three weeks on just that one video, I wanted to
make it very dense, so that each sound had its own visual
universe.
For 'A Half-Remembered Sentence' I liked the idea of

using a memory of The Quiet Man - it's a tremendously
evocative text - like the journal of someones life that has
been found and written down for another solitary human
being that might find it. So I thought about the idea of a
'memory of a memory' it seemed the right kind of way to
reinterpret John's work, and I felt had actually not been
done before for a piece of writing that would really lend
itself well to it.
It is just based on one small sentence from the text; "You

can only find this place by drifting, it's impossible to walk
directly here, you must first surrender yourself to the
tides of the city". It's a really great thought and relates to
the process of creativity too or just the way you try and
control the outcome of your life sometimes. I also wanted
to do something that was a little more ambient, so the
attention span you need for it is different from watching
an advert or even a music video. I also did the sound for it
myself using John's voice reading the line, again I wanted
it to be a step on from using his music.
Maybe in the future I will go back to the text and do
something with typography that is several hours long
which you could have on in the background while you
worked or contemplated a view. So that it would come in
and out of your perception.
Metamatic : How many different designs did you end up

submitting for the D.N.A. release?

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JOHN FOXX official website

Jonathan : It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say John has

I met John through just being at various events. He is

Metamatic : Did the films Clicktrack [LINK] and A Half-

Jonathan : They were created specially for this project

Metamatic : The music used for the film Clicktrack is a

Jonathan : I really like the fact that 'Clicktrack' wasn't

Incidentally it was important that the sound wasn't edited

For 'A Half-Remembered Sentence' I liked the idea of

It is just based on one small sentence from the text; "You

Metamatic : How many different designs did you end up

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