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Unique furniture of violence and desire
By day the overflights of B-52s crossed the drowned causeways of the delta, unique ciphers of violence and desire. J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition. ABOVE: MotoArt’s B-707 Fuselage Room Divider....
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Crouching Pervert, Hidden Meisel
ABOVE: Photo by Steven Meisel. ABOVE: Photo by Kohei Yoshiyuki. Via Susannah Breslin (Boing Boing guest blogger), we learn that Ballardian favourite Steven Meisel is back with ‘a layout that was...
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'Strangest Living Atrocities': Guy Peellaert, 1934-2008
Speaking of dog-men with huge genitals, and the man who visualised them for Bowie, Guy Peellaert passed away this week (I remember buying Diamond Dogs on vinyl years ago and the offending parts had...
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Eternal Layover
‘Like the suspended state of duty-free malls, a zone at once inside and yet outside the legal parameters of the country it exists in, Vaughan and [Crash's narrator] Ballard experience the motorways as...
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James Cawthorn, RIP: 1929-2008
Cover scan via Moorcock’s Miscellany. David Pringle reports that the fantasy and SF illustrator, James Cawthorn, has died. Cawthorn was a fixture of the New Worlds era, and had a strong link to...
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'Audiopollution! They said it'd never hit us here…'
Further to Mike Moorcock, Frendz and Hawkwind all turning up in Mike Bonsall’s brilliant excavation of Ballard’s neural motorway, and then the passing away of Jim Cawthorn, let’s return to John...
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'To write for the Space Age': Moorcock on Burroughs
LEFT: Burroughs in 1963: ‘particularly spectral and menacing: a fitting mug shot for a literary outlaw’ (image via Reality Studio). RIGHT: Moorcock, from around the same era (image via Moorcock’s...
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Drained Granny Pools
ABOVE: Granny takes a trip… underground. ABOVE: London Fields Lido, by Gigi Cifali. A group of Sydney architects are doing their best to rob us of a Ballardian future. As BLDGBLOG wryly notes, said...
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Ballardian Glamour
LEFT: Joanne McNeil. Recently, I was seriously puzzled by an attack from an anonymous (of course) ‘academic’ (female) on another forum that branded the contents of this site as ‘seething with...
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Dubai Ballard World
Over at the Transatlantis blog, there is an announcement of a new theme park patterned after Ballard’s work: A new theme park is coming soon to Dubai. Named The Ultimate City, its theme will be the...
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'Skid analysis': Vaughan reborn…
He turned his attention to me, tapping the bundle of handouts in his grip. ‘Get all the paper you can, Ballard. Some of the stuff they give away — “Mechanisms of Occupant Ejection”, “Tolerances of the...
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Ann Lislegaard: 'Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard)'
‘Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard)’, screening at Autopsy of the New Millennium, Barcelona. Photos: Simon Sellars. For you, I have unearthed a trove of information about ‘Crystal World (after J.G....
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'Cult of enthusiasts'
I’m somewhat flattered. Diane Johnson, novelist and co-writer of the script to Kubrick’s The Shining, references ballardian.com in a review of Miracles of Life: “Ballard’s novels, especially the early...
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'Because we're fucked': Skinner vs Gray
This is a bizarre match up: Mike Skinner of the Streets in conversation with the philosopher John Gray: It seemed a good idea to put the pop star and the professor together, and so they met for a...
View Article'Here's to the borderzone': life after the PhD
I don’t like to get personal on this website. However, there is something I need to acknowledge, because it involves on a significant level the readers of this site and its contributors. The final...
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Grand Theft Auto IV: Ballardian atrocities
Martin Pichlmair has written an interesting article for Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, ‘Grand Theft Auto IV considered as an Atrocity Exhibition’, that draws parallels between the...
View ArticleUpdate: Times Crash Competition
Over on the forum, Gareth has posted an update on the competition held by the Times to design the cover for a limited edition of Crash. I thought I’d bring the info to the front of the site, as a few...
View ArticleJGB: A 'billionaire' in Shepperton?
I thought I’d share a lovely comment from Vicky, a reader of my Shepperton photo essay (which reminds me: I’m still to post the second part. I hope to do that very soon, even if it is almost a year...
View ArticleSonic boom
Via structures: The first question from journalist Martin Conrads about J.G. Ballard’s short story The Sound-Sweep put [Bill] Drummond immediately on the defensive (”I don’ know it”), where he stayed...
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'Destruction of cities'
At Dan Hill’s always-impressive City of Sound, a recent post returns to Dan’s interest in Ballard’s Drowned World, positioning it as the middle panel of a triptych of novels (including Shute’s On the...
View ArticleCreating new worlds
It seems strange that in the SF & fantasy component of the Guardian’s ’1000 novels everyone must read’ feature, Ballard is referenced extensively… JG Ballard, the writer who brought SF into the...
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'Naive allegory; messianic tendencies'
Great find from Pedro, who sent me a link to a Brazilian review of Kingdom Come — in the form of a comic strip! Here is the rest of the strip. And Pedro has kindly translated the text from the...
View ArticleBBC Radio 7 adapts Drowned World
Three days left to listen to the first episode of BBC Radio 7′s radio adaptation of The Drowned World. Three more eps to go. This first installment begins with a snippet from Can’s suitably...
View ArticleBack in town!
Apologies for the inactivity at this site recently, and the usual grovelling apologies to anyone who has sent links, tips, messages, emails over the past month and a bit. Chaotic off-site scenarios...
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Ballardosphere update
Due to severe time restraints, I will probably refrain from posting much in the Ballardosphere section for the next few months. This was the regular blog-style section of the site where I posted news...
View ArticleR.I.P. JGB: Tributes from the Ballardosphere, part 1
I have asked Ballardian contributors and associates for their thoughts on JGB’s passing. This is Part 1. Also see Part 2: Michael Moorcock; Part 3: Tim Chapman, Rick McGrath, Solveig Nordlund, Dan...
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R.I.P. JGB: Tributes from the Ballardosphere, part 2
Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard and Claire Walsh in September, 2006 (photo courtesy Linda Moorcock). + Share your tributes and memories of JGB. MICHAEL MOORCOCK, AUTHOR ‘Jimmy’ to an early generation...
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R.I.P. JGB: Tributes from the Ballardosphere, part 3
Photo by Simon Durrant. + Share your tributes and memories of JGB. TIM CHAPMAN, WRITER I first read JG Ballard when I was 12 or so, after picking up Crash (with that lurid orange Chris Foss cover) at...
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R.I.P. JGB: Tributes from the Ballardosphere, part 4
Photo courtesy of Steve Double. JEANNETTE BAXTER, writer/academic The KINDNESS OF JG BALLARD I was fortunate enough to interview JG Ballard on a couple of occasions. What struck me most about our...
View ArticleTwitter updates
A few people have asked why I haven’t been updating of late. The truth is, I have been updating almost daily, but over on Twitter (@ballardian), which is where I will be posting most of my links for...
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Conference paper on Ballard and ‘circular time’
Still from La Jetée (1962), dir. Chris Marker. If you’re in Melbourne this Thursday, come and say hello! I’m giving a paper on Ballard, circular time and the nouvelle vague this Thursday, October 1,...
View ArticleBallard on Synth Britannia
The two Ballard-related segments from the recent BBC documentary Synth Britannia have been YouTubed. There’s also a BBC post about the relationship of these bands to Ballard. ..:: Previously on...
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R.I.P. Mac Tonnies
Although we never met in real life, I considered Mac Tonnies a great friend. We corresponded often via Twitter and email, and I interviewed him in 2007 about our shared passion for the writing of J.G....
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Ballardian.com presents the Savoy Books Microfiction Competition
Lord Horror (1997). Image by John Coulthart. Coinciding with our three-part interview with Michael Butterworth, David Britton and John Coulthart of Savoy Books, Ballardian.com is pleased to announce...
View ArticleExtended deadline: Ballardian/Savoy microfiction competition
Due to popular demand, the Ballardian/Savoy microfiction competition deadline has now been extended to 15 December. Keep those entries coming!
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Ballardian.com’s ‘Top 10′ lists for 2009
Happy New Year! After Robert Anton Wilson, my 2010 goal is to “create the happiest, funniest, most romantic reality-tunnel consistent with my brain signals”. And so the following is probably of no...
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Crash: Homage to JG Ballard
Ed Ruscha. Fountain of Crystal, 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 30 1/8 x 36 1/8 inches (76.5 x 91.8 cm). CRASH: HOMAGE TO JG BALLARD Press Release Gagosian Gallery 6-24 Britannia St London WC1X 9JD t....
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Landing Sites
Landing Sites from Simon Sellars on Vimeo. This is vaguely Ballardian… It’s my short film based on the ‘reversible destiny’ theory of the architects/conceptual artists Arakawa and Gins. It was made...
View ArticleThe Emergence of the Posthuman Subject
Registration here The Emergence of the Posthuman Subject Early Bird Fee 2-3 July 2010 To be Held at University of Surrey, Continuing Education Centre (CEC), 2nd Floor Senate House. Full Description The...
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Affirmative architectural dystopias
Next week, I’ll be speaking at Monash University’s conference Changing the Climate: Utopia, Dystopia and Catastrophe. I’m also helping to organise the event with Andrew Milner, and I’m looking forward...
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The Edgelands: ‘where the future waits to happen’
Photograph by Simon Sellars. There’s a brief Ballard mention in my latest photo-essay, ‘Postcards from the Edgelands (for Marion Shoard)’, originally published in Infrastructure as Architecture:...
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Extreme Metaphors: Interviews with J.G. Ballard 1967-2008
Extreme Metaphors in Waterstones, Birmingham – appropriately next to Barthes, Amis and Bataille. Photo by Luke Robert Mason. I’m very excited to announce that Extreme Metaphors: Interviews with J.G....
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London Event: Simon Sellars: A Secret History of Ballardian Cinema
Simon Sellars: A Secret History of Ballardian Cinema When: Wednesday 28th of May, 6.30 – 8.30pm Where: BL-NK, 37 East Rd, Shoreditch, N1 6AZ Free entry, please register:...
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Twitter: Defending the Indefensible
“You’ve still got the paradigms print gave you, and you’re barely print-literate” – William Gibson, Neuromancer “Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the...
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Twitter links, part 2
“You’ve still got the paradigms print gave you, and you’re barely print-literate” – William Gibson, Neuromancer “Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the...
View ArticleApplied Ballardianism on Formspring
After researching it for most of 2010, I am currently deep into the process of writing my book Applied Ballardianism: the Philosophy of J.G. Ballard, due for publication by Zer0 Books in 2012. To...
View ArticleTin Ear: J.G. Ballard’s Novels Translated into Sound
‘I’ve a tin ear, I’m afraid. I’ve never bought a single record, cassette, CD or whatever. I don’t own a record player of any kind… It’s a big defect, I admit. If my girlfriend’s playing Mozart or...
View ArticleApplied Ballardianism forthcoming from Urbanomic in 2017
I’m excited to announce that my book, Applied Ballardianism: A Theory of Nothing, will be forthcoming from Urbanomic in late 2017. The publisher’s page for the book is here, and Urbanomic’s blurb is...
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Applied Ballardianism: Memoir from a Parallel Universe
/// This summer, there is only one book to take to the Terminal Beach… APPLIED BALLARDIANISM: MEMOIR FROM A PARALLEL UNIVERSE. Dangerous Bends ahead… SPEED UP! Fleeing the excesses of 90s cyberculture,...
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Applied Ballardianism: European Tour
UPDATE: The Italian leg of this tour may be cancelled, given the coronavirus quarantines in Italy. In Turin and Venice, there’s a ban on public events until 1 March. I’m set to arrive in Italy on the...
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