Lead Story
“Der Visionär des Phantastischen”: An Interview with J.G. Ballard
Another installment in Dan O’Hara’s re-translations of archival German Ballard interviews: a 1982 conversation conducted by Werner Fuchs and Joachim Körber.
{More»} features
“Paradigm of nowhere”: Shepperton, a photo essay (part 1)»
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”.
1971: Year of the Drake»
Here’s a tribute to Gabrielle Drake, a co-conspirator of Ballard’s and the undisputed Queen of both outer and inner space. All hail 1971, the Year of the Drake.
‘The Crashman’: An Experiment in Applied Internet Ballardianism»
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.
Ballardian Home Movies: The Final Cut»
Here are the entries in the 1st Ballardian Festival of Home Movies. Congratulations to the winner, Ben Slater.
Miracles of Life extract & interview»
The Times is featuring an extract from Ballard’s forthcoming autobiography, Miracles of Life. There’s also an accompanying interview, in which it’s revealed that Ballard has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.
J.G. Ballard & Architectures of Control»
According to Dan Lockton, one of the many ‘obsessions’ running through Ballard’s work is the effect of architecture on the individual. More than playful psychogeography, Ballard dissects architectural influence on his characters with technical precision.
J.G. Ballard: The Visual Tribute»
Here’s a selection of visual art I’ve recently come across, all directly inspired by or referencing themes in Ballard’s work.
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interviews
‘Up a kind of sociological Amazon’: Ballard on Miracles»
Here’s the last in our batch of transcripts of recent Miracles promotions: James Naughtie’s interview with JGB for BBC Radio 4.
‘Obeying the surrealist formula’: Iain Sinclair & Hermione Lee on Ballard»
Here’s a transcription of the BBC Radio Front Row review of Miracles, presented by Mark Lawson and featuring Iain Sinclair and Hermione Lee.
‘Genius eye for the killer detail’: Parsons, Harris & Myerson on Ballard»
This one’s a transcript of BBC 2’s Newsnight Review segment on Miracles of Life. It features Tony Parsons, Julie Myerson and John Harris and is presented by Kirsty Wark.
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reviews
Simon Brook’s Minus One»
In 1991 Simon Brook made a short film from J.G. Ballard’s obscure 1963 short story, ‘Minus One’. Enjoy this super-rare screening of Simon’s film.
J.G. Ballard: The Oracle of Shepperton»
The final version of Thomas Cazals’ tribute, ‘J.G. Ballard: The Oracle of Shepperton’, has been released. It’s one of the stranger JGB ‘adaptations’ around, and is told with considerable flair and skill.
Ballard/Noys/Fisher»
A review of two academic articles written by Ben Noys on Ballard’s work, both analysing Ballard’s place in contemporary cultural production. This review also considers Mark Fisher’s recent Lacanian analysis of Basic Instinct 2, in an edition of Film-Philosophy edited by Noys, with its unearthing of intriguing Ballardian parallels.
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archival
‘It would be a mistake to write about the future’: J.G. Ballard in Conversation with Jörg Krichbaum and Rein A. Zondergeld»
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.
Munich Round-Up: Interview with J.G. Ballard»
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.
‘Kafka with Unlimited Chicken Kiev’: J.G. Ballard on Cocaine Nights»
Damien Love interviewed J.G. Ballard in September 1996. At the time Ballard was one of only a very few people in the UK to have seen David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Crash, which was wrapped in a controversy that was baffling then and seems truly mystifying now.
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