Ballardian

R.I.P. Mac Tonnies.

This is the foreword to the Greek edition of Ballard’s Miracles of Life, to be published by Oxy in November 2009.

I’m giving a paper on Ballard, circular time and the nouvelle vague this Thursday, October 1, at 3pm at ACMI in Melbourne, as part of the time.transcendence.performance conference. Come and say hello.

Reprints of three book reviews originally published elsewhere. The reviews discuss The BLDGBLOG Book (2009) by Geoff Manaugh, City Visions: The Work of Iain Sinclair (2007), edited by Robert Bond and Jenny Bavidge, and JG Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination: Spectacular Authorship (2009) by Jeannette Baxter.

What’s the connection between J.G. Ballard, Hakim Bey and Fredric Jameson? Tracking Ballard’s surreal visions of nuclear conflict to Ground Zero in the Pacific, the paper maps his peculiar, irradiated sense of “affirmative dystopias”, a template for his more enduring urban works (famously, Crash) that, finally, intersects in striking ways with the writings of Bey and Jameson.

An update on updates…

Late tributes from the Ballardosphere: Jeannette Baxter, Mike Bonsall, Mark Fisher, Owen Hatherley, Mike Holliday and Nina Power.

Goodbye, Jim…

Moving on to Twitter for a little while…

Grovel, grovel.

The first episode of BBC Radio 7’s adaptation of The Drowned World is now online.

Finally: the long-delayed conclusion to my photo essay, ‘”Paradigm of nowhere”: Shepperton, a photo essay’, in which I aim for the traversal of a distinct psychic terrain: the blanket overlay of Shepperton with a mental template gleaned from so many Ballard novels and short stories.

A Brazilian review of Kingdom Come — in the form of a comic strip.

Toby Litt on the best of JG Ballard.

Dan Hill looks at a triptych of post-apocalyptic novels: On the Beach, The Drowned World and The Road.

The first question about J.G. Ballard’s short story The Sound-Sweep put Bill Drummond immediately on the defensive…

Thoughts on Ballard, fame and reclusiveness, and Shepperton.

News on the stalled competition to design the cover of the new edition of Crash.

Autogeddon: Martin Pichlmair on the connection between Ballard and Grand Theft Auto IV.

Nic Clear leads the remarkable Unit 15 course on the built environment at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. In this interview, Nic explains the course’s focus on the work of Ballard as a way to counter the lamentable state of current discourse on architecture. The article includes clips of six stunning films produced by students as part of this Ballard-inspired methodology.

Just a little housekeeping note…

‘We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups — and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.’ If alive today, Philip K Dick would be 80. A few thoughts on Dick, Ballard, Kafka and perception.

John Gray meets Mike Skinner, discusses Ballard.

Diane Johnson, Kubrick collaborator, gets to grips with the Ballardosphere.

A slew of information on Ann Lislegaard, the brilliant artist behind ‘Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard’, the mesmerising animation that showed at the recent JGB exhibition in Barcelona. Includes links to an interview, video excerpts and stills.

If Vaughan was alive today, do you think he’d be using AutoCAD to plot celebrity autogeddon?

Announcement of the new Ballard World theme park in Dubai, following on from the Egypt, London and Shanghai versions.

Time-travel, according to Ballard, Marker, Tarkovsky and Godard. Some thoughts on memory retrieval and personal mythology. Ballard and Marker’s ‘fusion of science fiction, psychological fable and photomontage … in its unique way a series of potent images of the inner landscapes of time’.

Joanne McNeil on women characters in Ballard.

A group of Sydney architects are doing their best to rob us of a Ballardian future.

A new interview with Michael Moorcock, discussing Burroughs, Ballard, the Bomb and more.

The return of Moorcock, Hawkwind, Frendz… and Jim Cawthorn.

RIP James Cawthorn, illustrator for New Worlds and Savoy Books; pastichist of Ballard.

Bruce Sterling wrote: ‘For the cyberpunks … technology is visceral. It is not the bottled genie of remote Big Science boffins; it is pervasive, utterly intimate. Not outside us, but next to us. Under our skin; often, inside our minds.’ And Ballard’s influence was at the heart of it.

Man survives for three months in airport terminal; doesn’t know why he’s there…

The artist Guy Peellaert, designer of Bowie’s Diamond Dogs cover and more, died this week.

A man shrugs off the clucking of his family and makes his way to International Departures. With the ticketing formalities over, he slumps at the bar and orders drinks. A flat, synthetic boarding call and he remembers his trip: ‘Last call for Silverwing 501. Please make your way to Gate 23.’

Steven Meisel: rejected by Vogue Italia, embraced by ballardian.com.

At last: furniture for the Ballardian bachelor pad.

Happy birthday, Mr Ballard.

Preliminary news about the 50th anniversary celebrations for Naked Lunch.

BLDGBLOG on Ballard, resampled architecture, homogenous global space and Michael Winterbottom.

Ballard in Esquire.

I’ve finally captured my impressions of Barcelona and Kosmopolis, with main ingredients: Lou Reed, Claire Walsh, Laurie Anderson, Kafka, Brecht, Dali, brilliant public space, Ballard, and the sheer unbridled thrill of one of the most amazing cities in Europe.

Here are some preliminary thoughts from the city of Barcelona, where I am appearing on a panel to talk about the work of J.G. Ballard as part of the Kosmopolis literary festival.

I’m off to Barcelona to talk about Ballard with Vale and Bruce Sterling as part of the Kosmopolis literary festival. If you’re Catalonia-bound, come and say hi.

Ballard on horror fiction: ‘There are sudden glimpses of the shocking and unspeakable in my fiction too, so there is a certain overlap’.

Stunning news — a new book from JGB in the works: ‘Outline for a new book, working title Conversations with My Physician. The physician in question is oncologist Professor Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College, London, who is treating Ballard for prostate cancer. While it is in part a book about cancer, and Ballard’s struggle with it, it moves on to broader themes — indeed, the subtitle is The Meaning, if Any, of Life.’

Solveig Nordlund’s Ballard adaptation, Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude, is rooted in reality, as this report on Spain’s ghost towns demonstrates.

Announcement for Owen Hatherley’s new book, Militant Modernism.