Archive for the ‘boredom’ Category
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 18th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, CCTV, YouTube, alternate worlds, boredom, consumerism, death of affect, inner space, surveillance, television
A man is trapped in an elevator for 41 hours, steadily losing his mind. But to you, he’s just another bug crawling around on a security-camera lens. What do you do?
By
Simon Sellars •
Jan 29th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, autobiography, boredom, psychology, science fiction, speed & violence, visual art
The Times has two more extracts from Miracles of Life. In the first, Ballard reminisces about his time as a trainee air force pilot. In the second, he discusses the ideas behind Crash.
By
Simon Sellars •
Nov 10th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, CCTV, alternate worlds, boredom, crime, film, inner space, surveillance, technology
Annoyed with myself, I set off along the narrow street, past the surveillance cameras that guarded the lacquered doorways, each lens with its own story to tell. Hidden perspectives turned Estrella de Mar into a huge riddle. Trompe-l’oeil corridors beckoned but led nowhere…
J.G. Ballard. Cocaine Nights (1996).
Every good Ballardian needs this: SurveillanceSaver, a screensaver that […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Oct 26th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, boredom, speed & violence, technology
Photo: Eamonn McCabe.
Lee Rourke at the Guardian’s book blog has posted on Ballard, casting his vote for JGB as Britain’s ‘greatest living author’ and Crash as the ‘most prophetic novel written by a British writer in the last 50 years’.
Lee has some sharp observations:
Crash is the definitive novel of technocentrism: where the blurring of […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 22nd, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, alternate worlds, boredom, gated communities, inner space, space relics
Paul emails to tell me of this news item:
The European Space Agency (Esa) is after volunteers for a simulated human trip to Mars, in which six crewmembers spend 17 months in an isolation tank. They will live and work in a series of interlocked modules at a research institute in Moscow.
Once the hatches […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Mar 27th, 2007 •
Category:
Australia, Jean Baudrillard, boredom, dystopia, fascism, features, speed & violence, suburbia, urban revolt
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.”
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J.G. Ballard. Millennium People (2003; p. 104).
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On the morning of 2 January 2007, Melbourne woke to disturbing […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Feb 28th, 2007 •
Category:
Philip K. Dick, Salvador Dali, advertising, boredom, consumerism, fashion, interviews, visual art
Interview by Simon Sellars
Rick McGrath is a writer and former adman (which explains the pithy insights to come). He’s also the curator of what may be the world’s largest collection of J.G. Ballard first editions; he’s the ‘go-to man’ whenever a TV station or glossy mag does a rare feature on Ballard and needs […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Nov 7th, 2006 •
Category:
David Cronenberg, Iain Sinclair, Steven Spielberg, architecture, boredom, dystopia, interviews, psychology, utopia
by Simon Sellars
Photo by Emiliano Granado. Used with permission.
Geoff Manaugh is a writer and essayist whose work has appeared in Contemporary, Space & Culture, Blend, Lumpen, Inhabitat, WorldChanging, the Oyster Boy Review, the Urban Design Review, Subtopia, Vector, things magazine, and The Allen Ginsberg Audio Collection (a short essay in the CD liner notes). He’s […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Sep 5th, 2006 •
Category:
Salvador Dali, WWII, William Burroughs, advertising, architecture, bibliography, boredom, celebrity culture, consumerism, death of affect, deep time, dystopia, enviro-disaster, fashion, film, flying, humour, invisible literature, media landscape, medical procedure, non-fiction, photography, politics, psychogeography, psychology, science fiction, sexual politics, space relics, speed & violence, surrealism, television, urban decay, visual art
OPENING LINE:
“In his prime the Hollywood screenwriter was one of the tragic figures of our age, evoking the special anguish that arises from feeling sorry for oneself while making large amounts of money”. (from ‘The Sweet Smell of Excess’).
From the 1996 Harper Collins edition:
The first-ever collection of J.G. Ballard’s articles and reviews, published over the […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Sep 1st, 2006 •
Category:
New Worlds, Shepperton, WWII, advertising, architecture, bibliography, boredom, celebrity culture, consumerism, death of affect, deep time, dystopia, enviro-disaster, flying, humour, invisible literature, media landscape, medical procedure, photography, politics, psychogeography, psychology, science fiction, sexual politics, short stories, space relics, speed & violence, suicide, surrealism, television, terrorism, urban decay, urban revolt, visual art
OPENING LINE:
“I first met Jane Ciracylides during the Recess, that world slump of boredom, lethargy and high summer which carried us all so blissfully through ten unforgettable years, and I suppose that may have had a lot to do with what went on between us.” (from ‘Prima Belladonna’).
From the 2001 Flamingo edition (originally one volume; […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 12th, 2006 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, boredom, psychogeography
Leonard Pierce participates in Coudal Partners’ Field-Tested Books project, “our version of the Heisenberg principle: reading a certain book in a certain place uniquely affects a person’s experience with both. The writing you’ll find here is grounded in that idea. You won’t find any book reviews here. You’ll find reviews of experience”.
Leonard’s […]
By
Ben •
Oct 1st, 2005 •
Category:
boredom, consumerism, death of affect, photography, urban revolt
A series of Photos from the scene of February 2005’s riots.
By
Simon Sellars •
Aug 18th, 2005 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, boredom
From the Glasgow Herald…
Boredom’s not all bad Phil Miller
Review of A Philosophy of Boredom, Lars Svendsen, Reaktion Books, £14.95
‘ "Boredom is life’s own gravity" is a wonderful conclusion. Also one that is entirely fitting for this amusing, learned, and articulate philosophical study of one of humanity’s prime afflictions. … […]