Comments on: Ballardian Fractals in Dubai

By: Ballardian: The World of J.G. Ballard » No-One Dances In Ballard: An Interview with Mike Ryan

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:34:01 +0000

[...] In a recent discussion about Ballardian music, Paul Williams said that field recordings are more complementary to Ballard’s work than people singing about fucking an exhaust pipe. Paul’s example is ‘The Crackling’, a work by John Duncan, composed of treated field recordings made at Stanford Linear Accelerator, like ‘being in a vast space filled with the hum of a serious particle accelerator permeated by the distant voices of research technicians.’ In sound art, there are plenty of other people mining similar territory, so my question to you is: what could be more Ballardian than the sonic exploration of built environments and their psychological and social effects? After all, Ballard’s writing ‘records’ the spaces ‘in between’: the hum of traffic, of sodium lamps in business parks, of the technological exoskeleton. And – at least in one important strand of his work – that’s often explicitly mirrored in inner space, reflected in the magnified, interior sound of blood and arteries pumping… [...]

By: paul

paul — Mon, 08 May 2006 10:49:28 +0000

Dubai is wonderfully Ballardian to me. Ballard isn’t all empty swimming pools and deserted hotels… he’s also busy motorways, shopping malls and business parks as well. Ballardian ‘emptiness’ is in the concepts and people’s heads.

My specific point above was about the geometry of Dubai. Check out “The World” archipelago of artificial islands: http://realestate.theemiratesnetwork.com/developments/dubai/world_islands.php

There’s something disturbing about the obsessive geometry of the place…

By: anthony

anthony — Wed, 03 May 2006 19:04:45 +0000

any society based on the tyranny of convenience- as Dubai tries so hard to advertise itself as being, is doomed to failure, as the slave culture that ultimately supports it has to end in rebellion. Ballard is a Marxist. Our worst enemy is what we want.

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:10:31 +0000

I disagree. I was toying with the idea of living in Dubai a few years ago, just to experince a Ballardian/Super Cannes Version 2 way of life. Tedium is in the mind of the beholder.

Dubai is a highly artificial scenario. Ballard themes often deal with changes within society through technological advancement so i think this has all the hallmarks of a new Ballardian scene. I reckon Ballard should set his next book in Dubai!

By: Eunju Hwang

Eunju Hwang — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 15:14:52 +0000

I think Dubai is too energetic to be Ballardian landscape. Ballard’s landscape is, I guess, rather tedious therefore people begin to get mad there. I guess Dubai is too well-organised to be considered as Ballardian.