Ballardian

Simon Sellars re-reads Ballardian space in light of the idiosyncratic, real-world phenomenon of micronations, tracing parallels between Ballard’s physical and psychological spaces and Marc Augé’s idea of ‘non-place’.

In the wake of Neil Armstrong’s death, we recall Ballard’s enigmatic relationship to the First Man on the Moon.

Recently, it was announced that Christian Bale was returning to Ballard, set to star in Brad Anderson’s version of Concrete Island. But given the recent hype surrounding Vincenzo Natali’s proposed adaptation of High-Rise, and the non-appearance of that film, is this destined to be yet another ‘vapourware’ adaptation, joining the long string of phantom Ballard films ‘starring’ Jean Seberg, Richard Gere and Samuel L. Jackson? And is that such a bad thing?

In this, the final thrilling instalment of Brian Baker’s Apollo Roulette, the sequel to his 2009 Fleming/Ballard mashup, Baker continues to apply the method to desert imagery in Ballard’s work, uncovering the deadly secret that powers the American ‘nuclear state’: an apocalyptic game of APOLLO ROULETTE!

In this sequel to Brian Baker’s Ian Fleming/J.G. Ballard mashup from 2009, Baker applies the method to desert imagery in Ballard’s work. Finally, we are able to uncover the secret logic at play in the American ‘nuclear state’ – a deadly game of APOLLO ROULETTE!

In this excerpt from his book Animal Spirits, Matteo Pasquinelli explains how ‘the novels of J.G. Ballard can describe the nature of technology and the contemporary mediascape better than any philosopher, media theorist or cultural studies academic — a sort of political agenda born from the perspective of science fiction’.

An excerpt from ‘Outpost 13: The Atrocity Exhibition’, directed by Mark C and produced by Outpost 13: Stuart Argabright, Mark C and Kent Heine. The film is based on J.G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, part of a performance piece featuring o13 performing the soundtrack live.

With the sad news of Elizabeth Taylor’s passing, the time seems right to review the appearance of this enigmatic actress across a significant chapter in Ballard’s work, spanning the publication of the experimental story ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’ in 1966 through to 1973 and the notorious Crash.

What is the link between the film X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), directed by Roger Corman, the film They Live (1988), directed by John Carpenter, and the work of J.G. Ballard? Nothing less than the B-movie as a rearguard response to the gathering global and economic forces of late capitalism.

The political theorist John Gray has long been an enthusiastic admirer of J.G. Ballard, and Ballard often expressed appreciation for Gray’s work. Mike Holliday examines the essental nature of this ‘two-man mutual admiration society’.

To promote the one-day conference ‘Eduardo Paolozzi Re-readings’ at Manchester Metropolitan University on 18 February, we present excerpts from David Brittain’s essay on the relationship between Paolozzi, Ballard and Ambit’s Martin Bax.

Two years ago, Simon Sellars, Bruce Sterling and V. Vale appeared on a panel, ‘Myths of a Near Future’, to discuss the work of J.G. Ballard. Our friend Tim Chapman was in the audience and he has kindly transcribed the discussion. Here it is, two years late, but hopefully still of interest: ‘Myths of a Near Future’.

Introducing the incredible short films of Paul Williams, who, stationed in Abu Dhabi, mines a unique nexus of Ballard, Islam, rampant development, industrial isolation and subsonic hums.

Via Static TV, film of discussions at the Ballardian Architecture: Inner and Outer Space symposium, Royal Academy of Arts. The event was chaired by Jeremy Melvin and speakers included John Gray, Nic Clear, David Cunningham, Nigel Coates, Matthew Taunton, Chris Hall, Joanne Murray, Dan Holdsworth, Tim Abrahams and Claire Walsh.

Ballard’s final novel, Kingdom Come, a dystopian account of consumerism as a type of ’soft fascism’, received lukewarm reviews and suggestions that the author was, perhaps, finally losing his touch. Others were eager to point to parallels between it and events around us: aggressive car commercials, racist behaviour by sports fanatics. In this article, Mike Holliday re-examines Kingdom Come and asks: can we really equate consumerism with fascism?

For Ballard surrealist art was one of many possible routes to inner space. But inner space in its quintessentially Ballardian form needed something other than surrealist reproductions on the covers of his books. This was the challenge facing David Pelham, when Penguin’s Ballard titles came up for reprint.

Examining Ballard’s artwork from the late 60s, Benjamin Noys uncovers a future that never took place. The image he focuses on appears as a very 60s image, yet it disjoints itself from that moment by its prescient refusal of the usual models of repression, liberation, and recuperation.

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.

In November, we announced our first microfiction competition, promoting our 3-part series of interviews with luminaries from Savoy Books. As the second interview is due online soon, we thought now’s the time to announce the prizewinners… Many thanks to all who entered!

Nicholas Cobb’s architectural model of a corporate campus, photographed with a malevolent, dystopian flair, and exploring parallel themes to Ballard’s Super-Cannes.

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.

“Greetings from London! Hope all is well with you. I’ve just attended the long-anticipated JG Ballard Memorial celebration at the Tate Modern and now I’m catching my breath — and a few beers — at a nearby Thames-side pub with fellow Ballardians. We’re having a wonderful time — wish you were here. But let’s start at the beginning. We have time to order some Alsatian off the barbie…” Love from Rick.

The fiction of JG Ballard was centred almost wholly on the built environment. Ballard took architectural design to its logical extreme and then contorted it further. Simon Sellars looks at how architects can learn from Ballard and, specifically, his use of urban sound as a metaphor.

This is the foreword to the Greek edition of Ballard’s Miracles of Life, to be published by Oxy in November 2009.

JG Ballard and Iain Sinclair have often been cast in a simple narrative of compatible writers and thematic consistencies. David Cunningham’s wide-ranging article forces a new appreciation of this complex relationship.

What’s the connection between J.G. Ballard, Hakim Bey and Fredric Jameson? Tracking Ballard’s surreal visions of nuclear conflict to Ground Zero in the Pacific, the paper maps his peculiar, irradiated sense of “affirmative dystopias”, a template for his more enduring urban works (famously, Crash) that, finally, intersects in striking ways with the writings of Bey and Jameson.

Readers hoping to solve the mystery of J.G. Ballard’s ‘The Beach Murders’ may care to approach it in the form of a card game. Some of the principal clues have been alphabetized, some left as they were found, scrawled on to the backs of a deck of cards. Readers are invited to recombine the order of the cards to arrive at a solution. Obviously any number of solutions is possible, and the final answer to the mystery lies forever hidden.

“As Michael Jackson reached middle age, the skin of both his cheeks and neck tended to sag from failure of the supporting structures. His naso-labial folds deepened, and the soft tissues along his jaw fell forward. His jowls tended to increase. In profile the creases of his neck lengthened and the chin-neck contour lost its youthful outline and became convex.”

Mike Holliday gets to the bottom of the 1968 obscenity trial brought against Bill Butler and the Unicorn Bookshop, for stocking Ballard’s ‘Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan’. As prosecuting counsel Michael Worsley asked of Ballard’s work, “Is this not the meanderings of a dirty and diseased mind?”

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.

The aesthetic of the advertisement appears again and again in J.G. Ballard’s work. Here, Rick McGrath explores Ballard’s fascination with the structure of advertising, and the role of the advertising man himself, examining ersatz ads in detail right across the body of JGB’s work.

Finally: the long-delayed conclusion to my photo essay, ‘”Paradigm of nowhere”: Shepperton, a photo essay’, in which I aim for the traversal of a distinct psychic terrain: the blanket overlay of Shepperton with a mental template gleaned from so many Ballard novels and short stories.

Mike Holliday examines one of the strangest, most obscure artifacts of Ballard’s career: the concrete poetry and graphic art that make up ‘J.G. Ballard’s Court Circular’. As Mike discovers, even the most unremarkable of Ballard’s writings can repay close attention.

‘We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups — and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.’ If alive today, Philip K Dick would be 80. A few thoughts on Dick, Ballard, Kafka and perception.

Time-travel, according to Ballard, Marker, Tarkovsky and Godard. Some thoughts on memory retrieval and personal mythology. Ballard and Marker’s ‘fusion of science fiction, psychological fable and photomontage … in its unique way a series of potent images of the inner landscapes of time’.

Mike Bonsall sets out on a mission to find The Real Concrete Island, and is surprised by what he finds: ‘Ballard must have walked the same streets that years later I was to haunt with my own damaged crew. Living within sight of the Westway, which I felt must have helped form his motorway mythology, I was moved to do some geo-detective work…’

Bruce Sterling wrote: ‘For the cyberpunks … technology is visceral. It is not the bottled genie of remote Big Science boffins; it is pervasive, utterly intimate. Not outside us, but next to us. Under our skin; often, inside our minds.’ And Ballard’s influence was at the heart of it.

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.’

I’ve finally captured my impressions of Barcelona and Kosmopolis, with main ingredients: Lou Reed, Claire Walsh, Laurie Anderson, Kafka, Brecht, Dali, brilliant public space, Ballard, and the sheer unbridled thrill of one of the most amazing cities in Europe.

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.

Stunning news — a new book from JGB in the works: ‘Outline for a new book, working title Conversations with My Physician. The physician in question is oncologist Professor Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College, London, who is treating Ballard for prostate cancer. While it is in part a book about cancer, and Ballard’s struggle with it, it moves on to broader themes — indeed, the subtitle is The Meaning, if Any, of Life.’

This short piece about Ballardian sound art appeared in the CCCB’s catalogue for their Ballard exhibition. Accompanying this post is a 12-track muxtape featuring selections from the music curated for the event.

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

Jordi Costa, the curator of J.G. Ballard: Autopsy of the New Millennium, currently exhibiting at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, gifts us this incisive analysis of the major themes in Ballard’s work. Accompanying the essay is the alternate version of the exhibition’s promo trailer.

Promotional film and catalogue prologue for the exhibition J.G. Ballard: Autopsy of the New Millennium, at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. Film features Marilyn Monroe’s ghost, Ballard’s mellifluous tones, snatched Aphex Twin, what looks like James Dean’s car and a severe case of the night terrors.

What is the connection between J.G. Ballard and H.P. Lovecraft? Artist John Coulthart is well placed to offer some insight into what he terms ‘superficial style at the service of a unique imagination’.

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’.

Mike Holliday investigates a strange interregnum in Ballard’s career, three short stories that return to earlier concerns: psychological dislocations and disturbances, somehow caused by human space-flight, in our perception of the flow of time.

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.