Ballardian

David Pelham produced perhaps the most Ballardian images ever to grace the covers of Ballard’s novels, prompted by this brief from the author himself: ‘‘monumental/tombstones/airless thermonuclear landscape/horizons/a zone devoid of time’. Here, Pelham discusses his apocalyptic art with James Pardey.

Next week, I’ll be speaking on ‘affirmative architectural dystopias’ at Monash University’s conference Changing the Climate: Utopia, Dystopia and Catastrophe. I’m on a panel representing Pia Ednie-Brown’s Plastic Futures project at the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT University. My paper is centred around the theories of François Roche, Greg Lynn and Ballard, but it also considers the work of Nic Clear, Archigram, Bruce Sterling, Geoff Manaugh and Marion Shoard.

Ballardian.com presents selections taken from artist Simon O’Carrigan’s mixed-media series “The Drowned World”, a title taken in reference to a speculative fiction that inspired much of the imagery in this work: J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World.

Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of quarries, factories, mining pits and railcuts are extraordinary for their depiction of mankind’s organisation of the land for resource-extraction and profit. Paul Roth makes the case that Burtynsky is one of our most Ballardian artists. Adopting a style in overt homage to Ballard, the essay honours his legacy as the foremost imaginative interpreter of the world Burtynsky documents.

JG Ballard’s writing encompassed topics as diverse as ecological crisis, technological fetishism, urban ruination and suburban mob culture. In this extract from the September-October issue of Architectural Design, Nic Clear explores how Ballard’s understanding of architecture and architects made him one of the most important figures in the literary articulation of architectural issues and concerns.

Dan Hill looks at a triptych of post-apocalyptic novels: On the Beach, The Drowned World and The Road.

Nic Clear leads the remarkable Unit 15 course on the built environment at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. In this interview, Nic explains the course’s focus on the work of Ballard as a way to counter the lamentable state of current discourse on architecture. The article includes clips of six stunning films produced by students as part of this Ballard-inspired methodology.

A slew of information on Ann Lislegaard, the brilliant artist behind ‘Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard’, the mesmerising animation that showed at the recent JGB exhibition in Barcelona. Includes links to an interview, video excerpts and stills.

Announcement of the new Ballard World theme park in Dubai, following on from the Egypt, London and Shanghai versions.

Transmission from Barcelona stop Having a wonderful time stop I believe in nothing stop Lost in surreal image machine and deep-blue-drenched corridors stretching to infinity stop Startling comma perverse visuals stop Rare books and writing stop Exhibition a raging success stop JGB would be proud stop Full letter to follow comma Love Rick end transmission

Press release with fuller information and accompanying images for JG Ballard, Autopsy of the New Millennium, opening today at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB).

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’.

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

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.

Was Ballard influenced by Ian Fleming at the onset of his career? Or was there a sparkle of satirical intent in the author’s eye?

Here’s a selection of visual art that we’ve previously featured on this site, all directly inspired by or referencing themes in Ballard’s work. See Part 1 for more recent discoveries. Image from ‘Future Ruins’ by Michelle Lord Inspired by author J.G. Ballard’s literary visions of modernist architectural design and his prophetic views on the technological [...]

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.

Geoff has posted a fabulous interview with monumental SF/utopian author Kim Stanley Robinson over at BLDGBLOG. Robinson responds to Geoff’s fresh perspective…

According to William Viney, Crash presents a barrage of images that expresses collapse, dereliction, and waste; a seemingly endless carnival of sex and destruction; intoxicating, perverting, and desensitizing the reader, while Empire of the Sun can be seen as the terminus of Ballard’s treatment of waste, the epitome of all that has gone before. Although Ballard’s other works deal with the subject of death and the disposal of corpses, Empire of the Sun attempts to cope with this disposal on a mass-scale, or rather, during both war and peace, it explores the complex transition between the valued human being and lifeless, disposable cadaver.

William Viney explores how High-Rise, Concrete Island, and “The Ultimate City” contain familiar visual landscapes. However, each of these recognisable aspects of urban experience is rendered unfamiliar through the pervasive renegotiation of waste categories.

Image by Pedro Armestre and Mario Gómez. The influence of BLDGBLOG’s Geoff Manaugh is spreading far and wide, so much so he is now featuring in a personality profile (disguised as a walking tour) in the Los Angeles Times in which the colour of his hair is discussed! Luckily, the writer, architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, [...]

Back in July, the always-excellent things magazine reported the existence of ‘The Suburban Emergency Management Project, always on the lookout for some major Ballardian catastrophe’. SEMP’s mission statement is to provide ‘a full spectrum of resources to support any community organization that provides or manages disaster-related services. SEMP publications include Securitas Magazine and Biot Reports [...]

Image from Jon Cattapan’s Drowned World (courtesy Victorian College of the Arts). Still in Melbourne, I somehow missed this last year (think I may have been O/S at the time) but it’s worth recording as yet another excellent example of Ballard’s spreading influence in the visual arts. There’s one apparent error, though — as far [...]

Stunning floods in England, of course; big, big news. And, as Blood & Treasure reports: Life imitates Ballard, forces him out of own house: ‘In 1962 JG Ballard wrote The Drowned World, a fictional account of a flooded London, “a garbage filled swamp”. This week London has been under flood alert, with the water full [...]

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 [...]

Self-portrait: next to the M3 in Shepperton (photo: Simon Sellars). Apologies for the down time this site has experienced since the Ballard conference. I’m still in England where I’ve experienced many Ballardian and sub-Ballardian moments (and even some non-Ballardian moments, would you Adam and Eve it?) including exchanging views on ‘torture porn’ with Rick Poynor [...]

Here’s an excerpt from the BBC documentary, The Martians and Us, focusing on J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World. It features Ballard cheer from Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest, Will Self, Roger Luckhurst, Brian Stableford and John Sutherland. [ thanks, Pedro ]

Check out these flood maps — dynamic maps predicting sea-level rise around the globe (found via Dissensus). First, adjust the rising sea level to +14m. Then focus on London. Now zoom into Shepperton. Result: a self-fulfilling prophecy for the Shepperton-based author of The Drowned World.

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. [...]

OPENING LINE: “The dust came first.” From the Penguin edition, 1976: The wind came from nowhere … a super-hurricane that blasted round the globe at hundreds of miles per hour burying whole communities beneath piles of rubble, destroying all organized life and driving those it did not kill to seek safety in tunnels and sewers [...]

OPENING LINE: “Soon it would be too hot.” From Amazon UK: In the 21st century, fluctuations in solar radiation have caused the ice-caps to melt and the seas to rise. Global temperatures have climbed, and civilization has retreated to the Arctic and Antarctic circles. London is a city now inundated by a primeval swamp, to [...]

OPENING LINE: “At noon, when Dr Charles Ransom moored his houseboat in the entrance to the river, he saw Quilter, the idiot son of the old woman who lived in the ramshackle barge outside the yacht basin, standing on a spur of exposed rock on the opposite bank and smiling at the dead birds floating [...]

I came across a tantalising abstract for an article by Matthew Gandy from a journal called Space and Culture. Apparently the article, “J. G. Ballard and the Politics of Catastrophe”, states that “J. G. Ballard’s fictional depiction of a future London under water bears a striking similarity with the actual experience of New Orleans. In [...]

OPENING LINE: ” ‘Save the albatross! Stop nuclear testing now!’ “. From the 1994 Picador edition: Led by a charismatic and slightly unhinged woman, a group of environmentalists wins control over a small atoll in the Pacific and sets up a utopian community. Breeding other threatened species and among themselves, these homesteaders slowly transform an [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

Geoff has posted Part 2 of his Mike Davis interview over at BLDGBLOG, with suitably Ballardian and peripheral topics: “In this instalment, Davis discusses the rise of Pentecostalism in global mega-slums; the threat of avian flu; the disease vectors of urban poverty; criminal and terrorist mini-states; the future of sovereignty; environmental footprints; William Gibson; the [...]

Bruce Sterling is a prolific science-fiction writer, futurist, social critic and design professor, best known for his bestselling novels and seminal short fiction, and as the editor of the Mirrorshades anthology that defined the ‘cyberpunk’ subgenre. His nonfiction includes works of futurism such as Tomorrow Now; a regular column and blog for Wired; and his [...]