Ballardian: the World of J.G. Ballard

For this upcoming exhibition, the International Project Space in Birmingham will be transformed into the J.G. Ballard Centre for Psychopathological Research, “an institute built to interrogate the New Psychology explored in Ballard’s fiction.”

This post is given over to recent links readers have sent me. ‘Ballardian’ or not? You decide.

Above: ‘The Staircase’, by Troy Paiva, 2005. ‘Byron Hot Springs Hotel, Byron California. Built in the 1930s, used for POW interrogations during WWII. Abandoned for decades, many say it’s quite haunted. It IS noisy at night in there . . . Night,full moon, dark interior, blue and red-gelled strobe flash. Canon 20D.’
The brilliant work of […]

This disturbing photo feature focuses on peeping toms in Japan and Kohei Yoshiyuki, the photographer who documented them in the 1970s. Listen to Philip Gefter’s voiceover: he notes the triple trangsression here (eminently worthy of Crash as it so happens), involving the couples who have sex in public, the peeping toms observing them, and the […]

Here’s a slideshow that loops images from the incredible J.G. Ballard pool over at Flickr — over 2000 photos and counting. Click a pic for photographer details etc.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Photo: Stephen Hughes.
Read recently…
+ Via Fanny Magnate, David Chandler’s essay on the work of photographer Stephen Hughes:
Over the last five years Hughes has worked all over Europe, developing an interest in what might be called ‘peripheral places’, sometimes places literally on the edge — of cities perhaps, or by the sea — but also pockets […]

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 […]

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; […]

‘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, a young photo-media artist doing […]

Just came across this flickr photography group devoted to Ballardian imagery: http://flickr.com/groups/jg_ballard
There’s some very nice work, here.
This is their blurb: “This group shall collect images that evoke the narrative of J.G. Ballard. Drained swinmming pools in suburban landscapes, gated communities with their security video surveillance, highway embankments, deserted airport concourses, the post industrial nightmare […]

Thanks to Ben from the JGB Yahoo Group for pointing me to this “quite stunning set of aerial photographs of Mexico City. Hard to believe none of these are computer generated.”
They are indeed incredible: an amazing Ballardian quilt of patchwork suburbs; rows of multicoloured, identical houses as far as the eye can see; and bizarre, […]

Reviewed by Andrea Simonis
Review of JG Ballard: Conversations (ed. V Vale, 2005) and JG Ballard: Quotes (selected and edited by V Vale & Mike Ryan, 2004).
Published by RE/Search Publications
V Vale has been an underground publishing icon in San Francisco for quite some time, kicking off with late-70s ‘punk tabloid’ Search and Destroy (America’s equivalent […]

Photos from a recent sojourn (en route to Singapore and Bali) at Ballard’s favourite location, the Heathrow Hilton. “The Heathrow Hilton, designed by Michael Manser, is a masterpiece. It is my favourite building in London, and keeps alive the spirit of the 20th century’s greatest architect, Le Corbusier. Beautifully proportioned, it resembles a cross between […]

Nothing sorts memories from ordinary moments. They claim remembrance when they show their scars.
Chris Marker. La Jetée.
review by Simon Sellars
The films of Chris Marker are often termed ‘essayist’, participating in a phenomenological play with deep roots in French intellectualism. Working within documentary and pseudo-documentary modes, they mimic the manner in which memory and desire […]

Review by Andrés Vaccari

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM AMPLIFICATION.
Amplification
A book of photographs by Jeff Busby.
3 Deep Publishing
ISBN 0-9580508-2-1
Review by Andrés Vaccari
This handsome and hyper-glossy coffee table book concerns the unpleasant subject of automobile accidents. It’s impossible, of course, to put out a book of photographs of wrecked cars without thinking of JG Ballard; in […]

A series of Photos from the scene of February 2005’s riots.

I tracked down the cover of the JGB book in the ‘Contemporary British Novelists’ series (see post below). It’s interesting the image they used: a motorway overpass. This has become the default Ballard image, hasn’t it? Of course I use similar images myself on this site. It’s strongly linked to Crash, I’m guessing, which would […]

From the Guardian, August 7, 2005. The King of Kinky "Helmut Newton was a photographer who never saw the point of not overstating the obvious: in one infamous shoot, he placed a horse’s saddle on a beauty posing in riding jodhpurs on a bed on all fours; in another the women sported medical corsets […]