Ballardian

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.

John Gray meets Mike Skinner, discusses Ballard.

With thanks to Headpress books, here’s an interview with JGB conducted by Mark Goodall in 2006 for his book Sweet & Savage: The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens. The interview covers JGB’s admiration for the Mondo Cane films of Gualtiero Jacopetti, so-called ’shockumentaries’ that in their artfully faked scenarios present what Ballard terms ‘an elective psychopathy that would change the world (so we hoped, naively)’.

A 1:43 scale JFK motorcade and Ballard: what’s the connection?

This is the latest in Dan O’Hara’s back translations of German Ballard chats: an interview with JGB from 2005. This may well be the only time Ballard has been asked to consider the lyrics of Kanye West.

Info on a new volume of Ballard criticism, edited by Jeannette Baxter.

Dan O’Hara is back with another translation of a German Ballard interview, this time from 2007 with JGB in priapic, puckish form.

Another installment in Dan O’Hara’s re-translations of archival German Ballard interviews: a 1982 conversation conducted by Werner Fuchs and Joachim Körber.

A review of two academic articles written by Ben Noys on Ballard’s work, both analysing Ballard’s place in contemporary cultural production. This review also considers Mark Fisher’s recent Lacanian analysis of Basic Instinct 2, in an edition of Film-Philosophy edited by Noys, with its unearthing of intriguing Ballardian parallels.

This is an English translation of an interview with J.G. Ballard by Alexander Gutzmer, originally published in German by Welt am Sonntag, 3 June 2007.

So he has…
..:: Previously on Ballardian: John Howard: The Conspiracy of Grey Men (which is the only post on this site I’ve left with a comments box completely unmoderated, as the comments are completely priceless and apparently fairly sum up the level of political debate in this country).

I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the image of musicians and artists, who have built a career on left ideals and a rigorous program of apparent anti-authoritarianism, accepting knighthoods, or OBEs, or any of the hollow gongs that seem to get passed out like candy of late in the old country. Sir [...]

At the risk of incurring another bogey in the comments box, Dr John emails to inform me of a piece in the Guardian entitled ‘Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future’.
John writes: ‘It might just be because I’ve been getting ready for a conference on J. G. Ballard, but this article [...]

REMINDER: The ‘call for papers’ deadline for ‘Shanghai to Shepperton: An International Conference on J.G. Ballard’ is three days away. See here for details, and here for more on the conference.
J. Carter Wood, over at Obscene Desserts, has posted a long and thoughtful rebuttal of Rob Liddle’s recent dismissal of Kingdom Come. I posted about [...]

Left: Ballard’s author pic from the Varsity student newspaper (image & PDF courtesy Rick McGrath).
Mike Holliday has uploaded J.G. Ballard — A Collector’s Guide, an in-depth information resource designed “as a ‘helping hand’ to anyone interested in collecting books, stories, and other material by the British author J. G. Ballard”. There’s a lot of [...]

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; [...]

Interview by Tim Chapman

Iain Sinclair at the Barbican. Photo: Tim Chapman, © 2006.
Iain Sinclair has been acclaimed as one of Britain’s most visionary writers and as an incomparable prose stylist. His early writing, notably Lud Heat (1975) and White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), was rooted in his adopted home of East London. It did much [...]

One of the sources for the death of affect is the distancing from community and a sense of shared existence brought about by the technological management of reality. There is a central paradox here: while the technical construction of collective time (through the engineered events in the media) tends to produce an instant ‘real-time’ that [...]

A head-on collision Monday sent Sen. John Ensign and an aide to the hospital.
Ensign and the aide who was driving were taken to Sunrise
Hospital with minor to moderate injuries, police said.
A hospital spokeswoman said there was no record of Ensign being
admitted.
Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said the Nevada Republican and a
Senate staffer, who was not identified, [...]

BEATTY TRIES TO CRASH SCHWARZENEGGER RALLY
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
Associated Press Writer
SAN DIEGO
Actors Warren Beatty and wife Annette Bening tried to crash a campaign appearance Saturday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor sought to drum up last-minute support for a group of statewide ballot measures.
The Hollywood couple strode side-by-side to the entrance of an airport [...]

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 [...]

by Andrés Vaccari

The following is an excerpt from an official report prepared by Andrés Vaccari, on behalf of the JG Ballard Institute for the Study of Eroto-Responsive Kinetics, Canberra.
DISCLAIMER: The following photos have been modified by the patients referenced by this report. The JG Ballard Institute for the Study of Eroto-Responsive Kinetics, Canberra implies no [...]

In the ongoing battle between the two movie stars: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Warren Beatty, there has already been a number of Ballardian moments. If Beatty actually throws his hat into the ring for the governors race, we’ll surely be witnessing something that will appear to be more fictional than set in reality. Here’s the [...]

From the Londonist, July 18, 2005:
“We only just got around to seeing Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park – we figured we’ve waited for 35 years… what’s another week or so matter. Now we’re kicking ourselves for not getting along to the ICA sooner so we could recommend this to you guys earlier. We caught the very [...]