Archive for the ‘surrealism’ Category
By
Simon Sellars •
May 7th, 2008 •
Category:
Australia, Ballardosphere, David Cronenberg, Philip K. Dick, Steven Spielberg, alternate worlds, film, surrealism, television, theatre
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.
By
Dan O'Hara •
May 4th, 2008 •
Category:
Germany, Lead Story, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, drugs, media landscape, politics, punk, science fiction, sexual politics, space relics, speed & violence, surrealism, technology, urban revolt
Another installment in Dan O’Hara’s re-translations of archival German Ballard interviews: a 1982 conversation conducted by Werner Fuchs and Joachim Körber.
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 26th, 2008 •
Category:
Australia, Lead Story, Shepperton, alternate worlds, dystopia, features, flying, sexual politics, suburbia, surrealism, utopia
In 2007 I toured Shepperton using Ballard’s Unlimited Dream Company as my guidebook. Here are the results of that neurological survey, born from the torsion of “every cell in my body waiting at the end of a miniature runway”.
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 22nd, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Salvador Dali, architecture, celebrity culture, consumerism, deep time, photography, psychology, sexual politics, speed & violence, surrealism, visual art
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.”
By
Dan O'Hara •
Mar 23rd, 2008 •
Category:
Freud, Germany, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Shanghai, William Burroughs, archival, dystopia, film, psychology, science fiction, sexual politics, short stories, surrealism, utopia
This is the second of Dan O’Hara’s re-translations of JGB interviews originally published in German. This one dates from 1976, and in it Ballard provides comment on Russian writers and explains how film technique infiltrates and influences his own writing.
By
Dan O'Hara •
Mar 15th, 2008 •
Category:
Germany, WWII, archival, biology, deep time, entropy, enviro-disaster, inner space, science fiction, surrealism
Dan O’Hara has re-translated three interviews with JGB, originally published in German in the 60s, in which Ballard provides absorbing insight into his enviro-disaster trilogy: The Drowned World, The Drought and The Crystal World.
By
Mike B •
Feb 17th, 2008 •
Category:
Iain Sinclair, Salvador Dali, Shanghai, Shepperton, WWII, autobiography, interviews, speed & violence, surrealism, visual art
Here’s a transcription of the BBC Radio Front Row review of Miracles, presented by Mark Lawson and featuring Iain Sinclair and Hermione Lee.
By
Simon Sellars •
Dec 22nd, 2007 •
Category:
Lead Story, Shepperton, features, film, filmography, science fiction, surrealism
Sam Scoggins has finally digitised his ‘lost’ 1983 quasi-doco on Ballard, loosely structured around themes found in The Unlimited Dream Company. There are plans for ballardian.com to interview Sam, but for now, enjoy the film.
By
Simon Sellars •
Dec 10th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Lead Story, WWII, advertising, autobiography, surrealism, urban ruins
The publicity machine is warming up for Ballard’s forthcoming autobiography, Miracles of Life, due for publication February 2008.
By
Simon Sellars •
Nov 29th, 2007 •
Category:
Australia, Ballardosphere, politics, surrealism
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).
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
Dominika Oramus •
Nov 13th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Salvador Dali, Shanghai, Steven Spielberg, WWII, William Burroughs, academia, features, science fiction, surrealism
by Dominika Oramus
World’s first hydrogen bomb explosion, Eniwetok Atoll, 1952.
Dominika Oramus teaches Brit.Lit. professionally at the University of Warsaw. The following is Part Two of the introduction to Grave New World: The Decline of the West in the Fiction of J.G. Ballard, her post-doctoral thesis. Grave New World currently exists as a (very) limited […]
By
Dominika Oramus •
Nov 5th, 2007 •
Category:
David Cronenberg, Iain Sinclair, Jean Baudrillard, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Salvador Dali, WWII, William Burroughs, academia, death of affect, dystopia, features, psychiatry, science fiction, surrealism, technology, urban ruins
Dominika Oramus reads Ballard’s work as a record of the gradual internal degeneration of Western civilization: though we are not literally living amidst the ruins, the golden age is far behind us and we are witnessing the twilight of the West.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 13th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Salvador Dali, fascism, film, surrealism, visual art
You can’t help but notice a backlash towards Ballard these days. Here are two of the more aggressive memes.
BACKLASH #1: Ballard vs The Blogosphere
Ballard was recently interviewed by the Guardian in a series on writers’ rooms. In this feature he said, ‘The first drafts of my novels have all been written in longhand and then […]
By
Simon Sellars •
May 27th, 2007 •
Category:
Australia, Ballardosphere, Salvador Dali, academia, architecture, enviro-disaster, fascism, film, surrealism, visual art
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 […]
By
Simon Sellars •
May 1st, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Chris Petit, William Burroughs, academia, architecture, film, psychogeography, psychopathology, short stories, surrealism, theme parks
+ CATALOGUE OF CONTEMPORARY ATROCITIES
Jeannette Baxter, organiser of this weekend’s J.G. Ballard Conference at the University of East Anglia, delivers a challenging examination of Surrealist influences in Ballard’s Running Wild for Issue 5 of the online journal, Papers of Surrealism.
‘The Surrealist Fait-Divers: Uncovering Violent Histories in J. G. Ballard’s Running Wild’: Abstract
In this paper […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 17th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Salvador Dali, celebrity culture, media landscape, surrealism, visual art
‘If Dali Had Painted Angelina Jolie’, by 14. Copyright 2006.
I’ve just discovered the Gallery of the Absurd, maintained by the artist known simply as ‘14′ and devoted to her sharp, witty and frightening caricatures of A-list celebrities. There’s TomKat recast as TomRat — two furry, grotesque rodents cradling their hideous offspring; there’s The Three Disgraces: […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Mar 6th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, architecture, deep time, surrealism, visual art
Nice article by Jonathan Jones tracing the influence of Surrealism, including in the works of Ballard. It’s as neat a summation as you’d want of one of JGB’s major inspirations:
When we speak of something being surreal, we mean something between funny peculiar and funny ha-ha. It is undoubtedly this comic dimension that made surrealism so […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Jan 12th, 2007 •
Category:
Australia, David Cronenberg, Iain Sinclair, Jean Baudrillard, Steven Spielberg, academia, interviews, invisible literature, surrealism
&
J.G. Ballard, in 1960, posing in front of his ‘experimental billboard fiction’.
On 5 May 2007, ‘From Shanghai to Shepperton: An International Conference on J.G. Ballard’, apparently the first-ever conference on the work of Ballard, will be held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Guest speakers include the novelist Toby Litt; Dr Roger Luckhurst, […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Oct 8th, 2006 •
Category:
Salvador Dali, bibliography, consumerism, flying, surrealism
OPENING LINE:
“All summer the cloud-sculptors would come from Vermilion Sands and sail their painted gliders above the coral towers that rose like white pagodas beside the highway to Lagoon West.” (from ‘The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D’).
I’m not covering every one of JGB’s short-story collections in this bibliography — with the release of the Complete Short […]
By
Ben •
Sep 20th, 2006 •
Category:
Shanghai, consumerism, humour, interviews, psychology, short stories, surrealism, terrorism
JG Ballard. Photo: Paul Murphy.
On 14 September 2006 JG Ballard gave a reading from his new novel, Kingdom Come, and talked to Robert McCrum of the Observer at the Institute of Education, London — the evening was presented by Blackwell. Looking rather dapper and displaying a sharpness and wit that puts people half his age […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Sep 16th, 2006 •
Category:
Shanghai, Steven Spielberg, WWII, bibliography, media landscape, surrealism
OPENING LINE:
“Wars came early to Shanghai, overtaking each other like the tides that raced up the Yangtze and returned to this gaudy city all the coffins cast adrift from the funeral piers of the Chinese Bund.”
There’s not much left to say about the autobiographical Empire, perhaps Ballard’s most popular book and the work that catapulted […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Sep 5th, 2006 •
Category:
Salvador Dali, WWII, William Burroughs, advertising, architecture, bibliography, boredom, celebrity culture, consumerism, death of affect, deep time, dystopia, enviro-disaster, fashion, film, flying, humour, invisible literature, media landscape, medical procedure, non-fiction, photography, politics, psychogeography, psychology, science fiction, sexual politics, space relics, speed & violence, surrealism, television, urban decay, visual art
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 […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Sep 1st, 2006 •
Category:
New Worlds, Shepperton, WWII, advertising, architecture, bibliography, boredom, celebrity culture, consumerism, death of affect, deep time, dystopia, enviro-disaster, flying, humour, invisible literature, media landscape, medical procedure, photography, politics, psychogeography, psychology, science fiction, sexual politics, short stories, space relics, speed & violence, suicide, surrealism, television, terrorism, urban decay, urban revolt, visual art
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; […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Jul 11th, 2006 •
Category:
Chris Petit, Iain Sinclair, Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, architecture, audio, film, interviews, psychogeography, surrealism
by Simon Sellars
an image from John Foxx’s Cathedral Oceans project
John Foxx, the former lead singer of Ultravox, is an undisputed electronic music pioneer. Before Midge Ure came along, the band’s three Foxx-driven albums, Ultravox! (1977), Ha! Ha! Ha! (1978) and Systems of Romance (1978), fused near-future melancholy with icy man-machine interfaces and the remake/remodel aesthetic […]
By
Annik Hovac •
Oct 7th, 2005 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, celebrity culture, pastiche, sexual politics, speed & violence, sport, suicide, surrealism
by Annik Hovac
GRAVITY’S PEAK IS SURVIVABLE
“About midnight, Diana walks out, all green eyes and friendly breast velocity. Dodi, her Prince, is there to sweep her away from the insatiable paparazzi.”
The following extract is presented by the JG BALLARD INSTITUTE for the Study of Eroto-Responsive Kinetics, Canberra.
“On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana and her lover Dodi […]
By
Simon Sellars •
Aug 7th, 2005 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, David Cronenberg, photography, sexual politics, surrealism
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 […]