Archive for the ‘CCTV’ Category
By
Simon Sellars •
Feb 8th, 2010 •
Category:
CCTV, Hawkwind, Lead Story, alternate worlds, biology, body horror, boredom, celebrity culture, conspiracy theory, consumerism, cyberpunk, death of affect, entropy, inner space, psychopathology, reviews, surrealism, surveillance, technology
A review-essay of Jeremy Reed’s latest collection of poetry, West End Survival Kit. The review also discusses the long and enigmatic relationship Reed has with Ballard, who wrote the foreword to the collection, where he paid tribute to Reed’s ‘extraterrestrial talent’.
By
Nicholas Cobb •
Jan 18th, 2010 •
Category:
CCTV, Jean Baudrillard, Lead Story, alternate worlds, architecture, death of affect, dystopia, features, gated communities, leisure, non-place, photography, psychopathology, surveillance, technology, theme parks
Nicholas Cobb’s architectural model of a corporate campus, photographed with a malevolent, dystopian flair, and exploring parallel themes to Ballard’s Super-Cannes.
By
Simon Sellars Melb Psy •
May 27th, 2009 •
Category:
Australia, CCTV, Lead Story, advertising, alternate worlds, architecture, audio, boredom, consumerism, death of affect, deep time, fascism, features, hyperreality, leisure, micronations, occult, perception, photography, psychogeography, schizophrenia, surveillance, temporality, time travel, utopia
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.
By
Simon Sellars •
Nov 18th, 2008 •
Category:
Australia, Barcelona, CCTV, Lead Story, architecture, features, flying
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.’
By
Simon Sellars •
Aug 7th, 2008 •
Category:
America, CCTV, Chris Marker, Chris Petit, Iain Sinclair, John Foxx, YouTube, alternate worlds, architecture, film, invisible literature, media landscape, music, reviews
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.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 16th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, CCTV, Iain Sinclair, Ian Curtis, Shepperton, Will Self, film, music, psychogeography, suburbia, surveillance
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.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 16th, 2008 •
Category:
Australia, Ballardosphere, CCTV, alternate worlds, architecture, gated communities, micronations, paranormal
Where can one find the world’s strangest housing communities? Here is a handy list.
By
Simon Sellars •
May 15th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, CCTV, celebrity culture, film, gated communities, surveillance
Samuel L. Jackson is back in the game, soon to work with the best material he’ll ever clap eyes on.
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 •
Apr 15th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, CCTV, dystopia, surveillance, technology, visual art
Banksy’s latest masterpiece.
By
Simon Sellars •
Mar 14th, 2008 •
Category:
CCTV, alternate worlds, crime, death of affect, features, gated communities, suburbia, surveillance, technology
To celebrate the new version of the wonderful SurveillanceSaver software, here is The Ballardian Primer to Surveillance Cameras, with all quotes taken from Ballard and all images lifted from the Axis CCTV network.
By
Simon Sellars •
Nov 29th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, CCTV, surrealism, surveillance, technology
I’m slowly coming up for air after being buried alive by work and study. To everyone whose links, articles, essays and features I’ve promised to post, I’ll begin to work through the backlog over the next few days. By the way, what does it mean when you dream about trying to enter a church, but [...]
By
Simon Sellars •
Nov 21st, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Borges, CCTV, alternate worlds, film, inner space, paranormal, surveillance, technology
Image from Diet Soap #1.
+ Following on from my rapture at discovering the SurveillanceSaver software, here are some more portals onto mediated inner space.
Chris Nakashima-Brown brings news of issue 1 of the fabulous zine, Diet Soap. The theme is Surveillance and there are poems, palindromes, fiction, reportage and lots of excellent collaged art, including (so [...]
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 •
Sep 16th, 2006 •
Category:
CCTV, bibliography, gated communities, surveillance, urban revolt
OPENING LINE:
“25 August, 1988. Where to start?”
This novella is just 87 pages long. Ballard calls it a ‘whydunit’ (rather than a ‘whodunit’), and it’s as uncanny as that implies. The shadow of Columbine hangs over this work (or, rather, vice versa).
The murders happened shortly after 8 o’clock on the morning of 25 June, 1988. Media [...]
