Ballardian

Simon Sellars, Mel Chilianis and Melb Psy take an audiovisual tour of Melbourne’s Crown Casino, seeking to map the coordinates of this micronational zone — consumer-driven control space with a raging need.

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.’

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.

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

UPDATED. Aside from the films of Empire and Crash, Ballard has had almost all his novels optioned for the screen at some stage. Suitors include Richard Gere, Samuel L. Jackson, Jack Nicholson, David Frost and a trio of scantily-clad cavegirls.

In 2007 I toured Shepperton using Ballard’s Unlimited Dream Company as my guidebook. Here are the results of that neurological survey, born from the torsion of “every cell in my body waiting at the end of a miniature runway”.

MelbPsy gets all Atrocity Exhibition on the House that Sam Newman built, the ‘tabloid architecture’ sheathing yet another backyard Aussie micronation.

Just came across this snarky but amusing comment: ‘Both Ackroyd and the other strange geomancy warlock of English letters, JG Ballard, are now in their own deadpan, sly and slightly bitchy english way, sorta coughing and nudging their audiences towards Iain Sinclair….’

Here’s a selection of visual art I’ve recently come across, all directly inspired by or referencing themes in Ballard’s work.

A review of Demanding the Impossible, the Third Australian Conference on Utopia, Dystopia and Science Fiction, held at Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 5-7.

All Melbourne crew are welcome to come and heckle me this Wednesday (Dec 5, 1pm) at Monash University.

So he has… ..:: Previously on Ballardian: John Howard: The Conspiracy of Grey Men (which is the only post on this site I’ve left with a comments box completely unmoderated, as the comments are completely priceless and apparently fairly sum up the level of political debate in this country).

‘Tourism is the great soporific. It’s a huge confidence trick, and gives people the dangerous idea that there’s something interesting in their lives. It’s musical chairs in reverse. Every time the muzak stops people stand up and dance around the world, and more chairs are added to the circle, more marinas and Marriott hotels, so [...]

J.G. Ballard at KURBgallery. Please pass on to anyone who might be interested. From Pippa Tandy & David Bromfield: “From January 11 to 20 2008 KURB gallery, an artist run non-profit art gallery, studios and performance space at 310 William Street Northbridge, Perth, Australia, will hold an exhibition, forum, programme and events in celebration of [...]

In news just to hand (with hopefully more info to come): —————————————————————————————————— + FUTURE RUINS EXHIBITION June 15-23 Press release: Inspired by author JG Ballard’s mid-period novels, Michelle Lord’s ‘Future Ruins’ connects the remaining architectural examples of Birmingham’s concrete past with Ballard’s vision of the contemporary landscape, his prophetic views on Brutalist architecture and the [...]

Here I present the latest wrapup, not as extensive as I would like as I’m currently in Dubai trying to locate my missing passport, while entertaining the thought of spending a few days, maybe a week in the non-space of the Dubai International Airport until it turns up (hopefully a week; I’m trying to embrace [...]

Interview by Gwyn Richards & Simon Sellars Toby Litt is an English novelist who published his first book, Adventures in Capitalism (a volume of short stories), in 1996, when he was 28. He’s since won praise for the dark inventiveness of his writing, a combination of cinematic prose, apocalyptic imagery and sharp wit that freely [...]

by Simon Sellars Suburban Badlands: the Mill Park aftermath. Photo: Angela Wylie (from the Age newspaper). The system is self-regulating. It relies on our sense of civic responsibility. Without that, society would collapse. In fact, the collapse may even have begun.” ——————————————————————– J.G. Ballard. Millennium People (2003; p. 104). ——————————————————————– On the morning of 2 [...]

Flyer for Northern Void. Last night I attended the second (and last, for now) screening of Philip Brophy’s 50-minute film Northern Void, billed as a “live cinema performance” accompanied by the real-time sonics of Ph2 (Brophy and Philip Samartzis). Northern Void is set along Plenty Rd, in the northern Melbourne suburb of Preston — specifically [...]

“Believe me, the next revolution is going to be about parking.” (J.G. Ballard. Millennium People.) It’s becoming harder to keep up with the swelling tsunami of Ballardian world events. First we had to come to terms with the hidden meaning behind the Lisa Nowak story and Australia’s recent flag-waving menace. Then we had to wait [...]

REMINDER: The ‘call for papers’ deadline for ‘Shanghai to Shepperton: An International Conference on J.G. Ballard’ is three days away. See here for details, and here for more on the conference. J. Carter Wood, over at Obscene Desserts, has posted a long and thoughtful rebuttal of Rob Liddle’s recent dismissal of Kingdom Come. I posted [...]

Beware the water cops (photo: Sandy Scheltema; courtesy Age newspaper) Here in Victoria we’re undergoing a severe drought; heavy water restrictions are in force and things are projected to get much worse. A sign of the times is the appearance of “water vigilantes”, as reported in the Age newspaper: MARGARET Norriss is living in fear. [...]

In a Sunday Times piece on the ‘curtailment of working-class pleasures’, Rod Liddle writes: …what truly annoys me is … the way in which this government — and previous governments — view football supporters. If you’re unsure what this attitude is, read JG Ballard’s new novel, Kingdom Come. This is, as usual, a dystopian fantasy [...]

Here’s a Vogue Italia photo shoot by Steven Meisel that posits supermodels as new-age terrorists (thanks for the link, FJ Torres). As Tim has already commented, “If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping on a supermodel’s throat forever.” Yes, it’s Ballardian. Yes, it’s JGB’s imagined “sinister marriage between sex and technology”, [...]

In Diary: A Fascist’s Guide to the Premiership, published in New Statesman, JG Ballard previews the themes he unpacks in Kingdom Come. In this piece, JGB asks if the “English working class [is] re-tribalising itself” as a result of “football crowds rocking stadiums and bellowing anthems … taking part in political rallies without realising it, [...]

Interview by Simon Sellars John Foxx live at Shrewsbury, 1998. © Extreme Voice. This is part 2 of my interview with John Foxx, former lead singer of Ultravox before the band’s Midge Ure era, and an on-and-off solo artist for the past 25 years. Foxx’s Ultravox purveyed a damned, dreamy, paranoid — and often playful [...]

As part of our Ballardian Music series, Cat Hope looks back at Howard Shore’s soundtrack for the David Cronenberg adaptation of Crash. —————————————————————————————————————- Cat Hope is an Australian musician and academic, based in Perth, Western Australia. Besides performing in the bands Lux Mammmoth and Gata Negra, she also performs solo noise music using bass guitar. [...]

Being as I’m based in Australia, I obviously can’t make it to London yesterday (your time) and tomorrow (yours, mine, our time) to attend Cultural Fictions II, sponsored by the AHRC and the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, June 15th & 16th (found via k-punk). Some lovely London-based reader could, though, and perhaps summarise Steve [...]

by Simon Sellars Victor Slezak as ‘T’ in The Atrocity Exhibition Ballardian presents an exclusive interview with Jonathan Weiss, director of The Atrocity Exhibition, the film based on the J.G. Ballard collection of ‘condensed novels’. ———————————————————————————————————————- NOTE: This is a revised and expanded version of the original interview. The new additions are a reworked introduction, [...]

‘Senses Working Overtime’ from the Age newspaper, Melbourne, Australia February 19, 2006 by Simon Castles “Narinda Reeders wants to photograph the secret fantasies of Melbourne’s office workers for her exhibition. Simon Castles offers one of his own . . . I’m sitting with a couple of mates, telling them how I just interviewed Narinda Reeders, [...]

by Andrés Vaccari The following is an excerpt from an official report prepared by Andrés Vaccari, on behalf of the JG Ballard Institute for the Study of Eroto-Responsive Kinetics, Canberra. DISCLAIMER: The following photos have been modified by the patients referenced by this report. The JG Ballard Institute for the Study of Eroto-Responsive Kinetics, Canberra [...]

by Pippa Tandy “In a sense, I’m assembling the materials of an autopsy, and I’m treating reality – the reality we inhabit – almost as if it were a cadaver, or let’s say, the contents of a special kind of forensic inquisition… I regard all these as data which will play their role in whatever [...]

Recently I’ve come across a piece by one of my favorite authors, J. G. Ballard, on a show I’ve become addicted to against my better judgement: Crime Scene Investigation (you can access Ballard’s article here). I was pleased and disappointed by Ballard’s analysis. Although a lot of his comments are perceptive, I think he missed [...]