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The Politics of Enthusiasm: An Interview with Geoff Manaugh
by Simon Sellars Photo by Emiliano Granado. Used with permission. Geoff Manaugh is a writer and essayist whose work has appeared in Contemporary, Space & Culture, Blend, Lumpen, Inhabitat,...
View ArticleGerund Hunting: Amis vs Ballard
In an extraordinary, microcosmic review (behold: “the Amis full stop makes itself felt”; “these particular gerunds…allude to the male jaw”; “that dismissive ellipsis”) of Martin Amis’s new book, House...
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Collapsing Bulkheads: the Covers of Crash
by Rick Poynor ‘Missing the point’: (detail, Livre de Poche edition, 1973; design: Atelier Pascal Vercken). NOTE: This is an edited version of an essay published in Designing Pornotopia: Travels in...
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Ballardian Cinema: The Business of Strangers
Still from The Business of Strangers (dir. Patrick Stettner; 2002). During my search for ghosted Ballard film productions — vapourware movies based on Ballard books — it struck me that I should...
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Ballardosphere Wrap-Up: Part 6
+ IDEAL, RADIANT In his excellent paper, ‘Ballard’s Banlieue Radieuse’, delivered at the Ballard conference, Owen Hatherley locates JGB’s Vermilion Sands stories as a vision at right angles to the...
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UFOpunk: Mac Tonnies' Strange Blue World
Mac Tonnies is a Kansas-based writer of post-cyberpunk science fiction (recently published by the redoubtable Rudy Rucker). He’s also the author of the book After the Martian Apocalypse, a speculative...
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Crash! Full-Tilt Autogeddon
CRASH! (1971) from sdicht on Vimeo. by Simon Sellars CRASH! (1971) Director: Harley Cokliss | Writer: J.G. Ballard Starring: J.G. Ballard & Gabrielle Drake I wasn’t satisfied by just writing SF...
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Iain Sinclair's Ballard Biography
I reread Iain Sinclair’s BFI book on Cronenberg’s Crash recently as research for my article on the Crash! short film. I have to say I am amazed the BFI ever agreed to publishing it in a series about...
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Dream's Ransom: Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun
Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun (more at YouTube.) by Pedro Groppo EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) Director: Steven Spielberg Screenplay: Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard Starring:...
View ArticleCrash: It's that Low Mechanical Hum in the Background
The resonance of Crash refuses to dissipate. Firstly, John emailed to inform me of a new Washington Times interview with David Cronenberg, in which the Baron of Blood makes this rather curious remark:...
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Jeff Bartlett: Man for Our Times
Some people get their kicks from braving a mob of blood-crazed shoppers to attack the nearest mannequin. But if that doesn’t appeal, why not exact virtual revenge? Keith emails to inform of one of the...
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Cronenberg Still Rages
From the New York Post: David Cronenberg, director of the smash “Eastern Promises,” is still mad at writer-director Paul Haggis for naming his 2005 Oscar-winning racial drama “Crash,” just nine years...
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Grave New World: Introduction, Part 1
A-bomb explosion, Bikini Atoll, 25 July, 1946. I’m a scholar, I teach Brit.Lit. professionally at the University of Warsaw. My PhD (1999) was on Angela Carter and it got me a job there as assistant...
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'Meet you all the way, Rosanna yeah'
How strange is this: Rosanna Arquette, and Crash, popping up in all sorts of places. This film, Ballard’s story, still packs a powerful psychological enema. First up, Maxim Magazine, anointing the...
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J.G. Ballard: The Visual Tribute
As promised, to mark HarperCollins’ Ballard design comp, here’s a selection of visual art I’ve come across, all directly inspired by or referencing themes in Ballard’s work. Note the prominence of The...
View ArticleCome in no. 27, your time is up
The Times has a list of the Greatest British Writers Since 1945. Ballard’s in there at no.25 no. 27, where he is appraised like so: With Empire of the Sun (1984), the fictionalised account of his...
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‘You are Hochhaus!’: Ballard in Berlin
Image from Hochhaus, © Paul Plamper & Niklas Goldbach, 2008. An Interview with Paul Plamper and Niklas Goldbach by Dan O’Hara In July on the roof terrace of the Ludwigsmuseum, the major museum of...
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'Accident' or 'Vulva'? The battle for your Ballardian dollar
Two readers, Alf & Peter, wrote in separately with news of ‘Accident: A New Fragrance for Women’. As the punchline says: ‘Accident. New fragrance for women. Fragrance strip: The unique fusion of...
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Ballard/Noys/Fisher
Ben Noys has recently published two academic articles on Ballard’s work, both of which can be found online in some form. Included is an update of a specific piece of his that I posted here on...
View ArticleOn the phone to Ballard
It’s good to see the Guardian’s online columnist Danny Leigh get behind our Ballardian Home Movie Competition. As Danny rightly points out, there’s loads of potential, despite a few people elsewhere...
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