Ballardian

While the site takes an enforced break, please feel free to use the forum or browse through the archives. I shall be back with new content in a few weeks’ time.

This is a review of John Foxx’s Melbourne performance of Tiny Colour Movies, his found-film collection and live soundtrack. For the reviewer, witnessing this may have solved a two-year-old puzzle; certainly, it brought everything full circle back to Ballard.

Parallels between Ballard’s Kingdom Come and Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

This short piece about Ballardian sound art appeared in the CCCB’s catalogue for their Ballard exhibition. Accompanying this post is a 12-track muxtape featuring selections from the music curated for the event.

From John Goff: “Myself and Dr. Shivdeep Grewal have organised a half-day conference with the title ‘J.G.Ballard: imaginary scientist’ that may be of interest to some of your site users…”

A 1:43 scale JFK motorcade and Ballard: what’s the connection?

Submissions of up to 1000 words invited on any Ballard title.

Party to celebrate Troy Paiva’s new book of photography, this Friday August 1.

More autopsy photography from Rick McGrath.

News at last.

Surreal Documents gets to grip with Ballard and Lovecraft, with satisfying results.

Exciting news about Autopsy of the New Millennium, the 4-month exhibition celebrating the work and enduring influence of J.G. Ballard, opening at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona from tomorrow 22 July, 2008.

‘Northolt through an Ubu absurd lens’: the latest photo essay from English Heretic, tracking the dark heart of Ballard’s Crash.

New Marker blog: ‘Quoting mostly, writing little, ever fascinated by and admiring always the oeuvre of Chris Marker, le plus célèbre des cinéastes inconnus.’

What is the connection between J.G. Ballard and H.P. Lovecraft? Artist John Coulthart is well placed to offer some insight into what he terms ’superficial style at the service of a unique imagination’.

Ballard & Eno: quite possibly the ‘two greatest British thinkers of the second half of the 20th Century’.

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The forum is back online: sign up and go crazy. Who wants to be moderator?

London film screening featuring ‘futuristic visions of London’ and ’surreal urban worlds’.

The music of kode9 and Burial: just how ‘Ballardian’ is it? We investigate the viral spread of this apparent internet meme, detouring via Crash, The Drowned World and ‘The Sound-Sweep’.

Thomas Disch on J.G. Ballard.

Would readers like to see the return of the discussion forum?

The post title says it all.

Borges y Ballard.

Wim Delvoye’s ‘Kiss’ series of x-ray art echoes The Atrocity Exhibition and the illustrations of Phoebe Gloeckner. WARNING: this post is indisputably unsafe for work. No, seriously: you have been warned.

Martin Jones finds out that JGB most certainly does not sell film rights over the phone.

Drained swimming pools are a staple in Ballard’s work, and also the subject of photographer Gigi Cifali’s latest series.

Film and media studio floods London 82 years hence, evokes Ballard.

‘Enviable, admirable Ballard!’ Susan Sontag is smitten.

More on Jean Seberg and The Crystal World, including the appearance of another well-known cultural personage.

Jean Seberg, Rudy Wurlitzer and Ballard…

Kingdom Come, JoBurg style…

Iain Sinclair and Will Self together on stage talking about Ballard, Orson Welles and CCTV. Garden gnomes, Simon Reynolds and John Lydon get roped into the ring, also.

Some more entries in the Crash Cover competition.

Where can one find the world’s strangest housing communities? Here is a handy list.

New interview with Ballard in the Guardian.

Did William Burroughs really tell Ian Curtis to ‘get lost’? And how did the younger man take it? RealityStudio finds out.

Dr Robert Vaughan has a scarred penis. Describe it to me. Is his semen salty? Some semen is saltier than others. Let’s get rid of that gum — don’t want you blowing it up my urethra.

Ballard makes it onto a San Marino stamp. In the absence of American recognition, this will simply have to do.

Info on a new volume of Ballard criticism, edited by Jeannette Baxter.

Can anyone tell me what has happened to the competition to design a cover for Crash?

Over at Barnes & Noble, SF writer Paul Di Filippo tries to get America interested in Ballard.

What can JGB’s handwriting tell us?

Troy Paiva’s desert photography evokes the crumbling, decadent resorts and enervated cityscapes of Ballard’s Vermilion Sands and Hello America stories. Enjoy this interview with Troy, the Light-Painter of Mojave D.

More Bluewater, less Ballard according to Michael Collins.

“Iain, I want you to blow up Bluewater.”

A recent interview at the Burroughs site Reality Studio brings Ballard, Burroughs, Britton and Butterworth together … along with Arthur C. Clarke.