Ballardian

Ballardoscope: some attempts at approaching the writer as a visionary

By Jordi Costa • Jul 26th, 2008 •

Category: Alain Robbe-Grillet, America, Bruce Sterling, Lead Story, Shanghai, Shepperton, Steven Spielberg, WWII, autobiography, deep time, drained swimming pools, flying, hyperreality, inner space, literature, medical procedure, science fiction, sexual politics, space relics, speed & violence, surrealism, technology, war

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 wide-ranging, incisive analysis of the major themes in Ballard’s work: forensic detail, inner space, death of affect, dreamlike reversals of roles, synthetic cities, fossil skeletons … baroque, bejewelled fiction leading us through the doorway to the future. Accompanying the essay is the alternate version of the exhibition’s promo trailer.

J.G. Ballard: In the Raw

By Ballardian • Jul 22nd, 2008 •

Category: Barcelona, celebrity culture, dystopia, features, film, hyperreality, utopia, visual art, war

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.

Secure the parking lot; charge the mall

By Simon Sellars • Jun 25th, 2008 •

Category: Ballardosphere, consumerism, urban revolt, war

Kingdom Come, JoBurg style…

‘Violence without end’: An Interview with J.G. Ballard

By Dan O'Hara • Jun 24th, 2008 •

Category: America, Germany, archival, boredom, enviro-disaster, inner space, politics, psychopathology, religion, science fiction, speed & violence, the middle classes, war

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.

‘The Crashman’: An Experiment in Applied Internet Ballardianism

By Crashman • Apr 8th, 2008 •

Category: David Cronenberg, Freud, Lead Story, Michael Moorcock, WWII, YouTube, censorship, death of affect, features, film, flying, humour, media landscape, music, psychopathology, speed & violence, sport, war

Drawing inspiration from J.G. Ballard’s exhibition of crashed cars in 1970, the Crashman presents his own festival of Atrocity films: aviation disasters set to musical soundtracks.