Archive for the ‘urban ruins’ Category
By
Simon Sellars •
Oct 4th, 2010 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Marion Shoard, architecture, urban decay, urban ruins
There’s a brief Ballard mention in my latest photo-essay, ‘Postcards from the Edgelands (for Marion Shoard)’, originally published in Infrastructure as Architecture: Designing Composite Networks, Katrina Stoll & Scott Lloyd (eds), Berlin: Jovis, 2010. The essay uses the work of one of my main influences, the environmentalist Marion Shoard, and her research into the ‘edgelands’ (‘the interfacial interzone between urban and rural’), in order to address Infrastructure as Architecture’s main enquiry: is the involvement of architects necessary to shape the development of infrastructural design?
By
Simon OCarrigan •
Mar 28th, 2010 •
Category:
Freud, Lacan, Lead Story, animation, entropy, enviro-disaster, features, urban decay, urban ruins, visual art
Ballardian.com presents selections taken from artist Simon O’Carrigan’s mixed-media series “The Drowned World”, a title taken in reference to a speculative fiction that inspired much of the imagery in this work: J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World.
By
Nic Clear •
Dec 28th, 2009 •
Category:
Lead Story, R.I.P. JGB, Shanghai, WWII, academia, airports, alternate worlds, architecture, audio, body horror, dystopia, enviro-disaster, features, urban ruins, utopia
JG Ballard’s writing encompassed topics as diverse as ecological crisis, technological fetishism, urban ruination and suburban mob culture. In this extract from the September-October issue of Architectural Design, Nic Clear explores how Ballard’s understanding of architecture and architects made him one of the most important figures in the literary articulation of architectural issues and concerns.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jan 29th, 2009 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, enviro-disaster, urban ruins
Dan Hill looks at a triptych of post-apocalyptic novels: On the Beach, The Drowned World and The Road.
By
Simon Sellars •
Dec 24th, 2008 •
Category:
Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, academia, architecture, enviro-disaster, film, interviews, politics, urban ruins, utopia, war
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.
By
Simon Sellars •
Aug 2nd, 2008 •
Category:
Barcelona, audio, features, music, urban decay, urban ruins
This short piece about Ballardian sound art appeared in the CCCB’s catalogue for their Ballard exhibition. Accompanying this post is a 12-track muxtape featuring selections from the music curated for the event.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jul 29th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, photography, urban ruins
Party to celebrate Troy Paiva’s new book of photography, this Friday August 1.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 29th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, alternate worlds, architecture, deep time, enviro-disaster, urban decay, urban ruins, visual art
Film and media studio floods London 82 years hence, evokes Ballard.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 7th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, academia, consumerism, politics, sexual politics, speed & violence, terrorism, urban ruins
Info on a new volume of Ballard criticism, edited by Jeannette Baxter.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jun 6th, 2008 •
Category:
America, Lead Story, Philip K. Dick, alternate worlds, architecture, deep time, entropy, enviro-disaster, flying, interviews, photography, science fiction, speed & violence, surrealism, urban decay, urban ruins, visual art
Troy Paiva’s desert photography evokes the crumbling, decadent resorts and enervated cityscapes of Ballard’s Vermilion Sands and Hello America stories. Enjoy this interview with Troy, the Light-Painter of Mojave D.
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 30th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, David Cronenberg, suburbia, urban revolt, urban ruins, visual art
Out in the suburbs, the Birmingham-based Ballard exhibition Zodiac 3000 draws first blood…
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 21st, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, deep time, inner space, urban ruins, visual art
Details of a new exhibition in London that “often plays with the constants of space and time”. It includes the work of Michelle Lord, whose “Future Ruins” series previously featured on Ballardian.
By
Simon Sellars •
Feb 12th, 2008 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Chris Marker, Iain Sinclair, architecture, consumerism, photography, urban ruins
infinite thØught takes a Ballard-inspired tour of Bluewater, one of the inspirations for JGB’s Kingdom Come.
By
Simon Sellars •
Jan 22nd, 2008 •
Category:
America, Ballardosphere, alternate worlds, urban ruins
Gerry Canavan collects images of a ruined Statue of Liberty. Ballard is partial to the meme, too…
By
Dan OHara •
Jan 9th, 2008 •
Category:
Chris Marker, David Cronenberg, Germany, Steven Spielberg, WWII, architecture, dystopia, entropy, fascism, film, gated communities, interviews, urban decay, urban revolt, urban ruins, utopia
Dan O’Hara interviews the creators of Hochhaus, a German mixed-media radio play based on High-Rise. Transposing the novel to Berlin in 2013, it references Nazism, notably Speer’s social engineering through architecture, on its way to exploring Ballard’s relevance to speculative models of German life.
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
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 •
Oct 3rd, 2007 •
Category:
Brian Eno, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, William Burroughs, entropy, interviews, music, paranormal, urban ruins
Cousin Silas has created two albums inspired by the works of J.G. Ballard. Simon Sellars spoke to Silas about Ballard, Lovecraft, Forteana, Moorcock, Eno, Tarkovsky — all the essentials.
By
Ballardian •
Aug 18th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, alternate worlds, architecture, consumerism, dystopia, entropy, psychogeography, urban decay, urban revolt, urban ruins, utopia
Please forward to anyone that may be interested … TRIP: Territories Reimagined: International Perspectives Manchester, 19-22 June 2008. Call for Papers and Projects * * Psychogeography * * * Neogeography * * * Deep topography * * * Urban interventions * * * Locative media * * * Collaborative Mapping * * * Between June [...]
By
Simon Sellars •
May 22nd, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, Shepperton, alternate worlds, architecture, dystopia, enviro-disaster, inner space, urban decay, urban ruins
Self-portrait: next to the M3 in Shepperton (photo: Simon Sellars). Apologies for the down time this site has experienced since the Ballard conference. I’m still in England where I’ve experienced many Ballardian and sub-Ballardian moments (and even some non-Ballardian moments, would you Adam and Eve it?) including exchanging views on ‘torture porn’ with Rick Poynor [...]
By
Simon Sellars •
Apr 26th, 2007 •
Category:
Ballardosphere, enviro-disaster, television, urban ruins
Here’s an excerpt from the BBC documentary, The Martians and Us, focusing on J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World. It features Ballard cheer from Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest, Will Self, Roger Luckhurst, Brian Stableford and John Sutherland. [ thanks, Pedro ]