This is the foreword to the Greek edition of Ballard’s Miracles of Life, published by Oxy, November 2009.
In 2006 I interviewed Jim Ballard. I was nervous at the thought of matching wits with this towering figure but my anxiety was quickly banished, for he was a charming and generous conversationalist. Although taxed from the recent [...]

Images by Michelle Lord, from Future Ruins (inspired by JG Ballard’s ‘The Ultimate City’), 2008.
‘Pulled apart by the elders, many of the sets revealed their internal wiring. The green and yellow circuitry, the blue capacitors and modulators, mingled with the bright berries of the firethorn, rival orders of a wayward nature merging again after [...]

One of the more enduring misconceptions surrounding the work of J.G. Ballard is that it operates in the classical dystopian narrative mode, [1] supposedly mining pessimism, repression and the negativity of a post-industrial age.

Robert Bond and Jenny Bavidge, editors. City Visions: The Work of Iain Sinclair. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. ISBN 1-84718-153-8.
Jeannette Baxter. J G Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination: Spectacular Authorship. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7546-6267-9.
This double review was originally published in Colloquy, issue 17, August 2009, pp. 108-12.

City Visions: The Work of Iain [...]

Originally published on ballardian.com, 27 May 2009.
by SIMON SELLARS & STEVEN from MELB PSY
Soundwalk by MELANIE CHILIANIS; photography by Simon Sellars.

“The consumer society is a kind of soft police state. We think we have choice, but everything is compulsory. We have to keep buying or we fail as citizens. Consumerism creates huge unconscious needs that [...]

ABOVE: ‘London after the Rain’, by Ben Olszyna-Marzys. A film produced for Nic Clear’s Unit 15 course, ‘Crash: Architectures of the Near Future’.

Originally published on ballardian.com, 24 December 2008.
In recognition of the sophistication of Ballard’s architectural analysis, a raft of discourse has been produced in recent times from within both academic and pop-cultural realms. This [...]

Photo: Simon Sellars.
Originally published on ballardian.com, 11 November 2008.
Sorry for the long absence — I promised ‘daily updates’, well, that didn’t happen. It’s taken me ages to get my thoughts down about Barcelona and Kosmopolis because the experience was so rich, but contributing factors included jet lag, computer problems and a lengthy spell of writer’s [...]

Originally published in the catalogue for the exhibition ‘J.G. Ballard, Autopsy of the New Millennium’, held at the CCCB, Barcelona, Spain, October 2008. The piece accompanied the soundtrack of Ballardian music, which I curated for the occasion.
‘NEGATIVE ACOUSTIC SPACE’: BALLARDIAN SOUND ART
Curated by Simon Sellars
J.G. Ballard says he has a ‘tin ear’: that he has [...]

Illustration by John Coulthart.
Originally published in the catalogue for the exhibition ‘J.G. Ballard, Autopsy of the New Millennium’, held at the CCCB, Barcelona, Spain, October 2008. It accompanied the selection of Ballardian ‘home movies’ I selected for the exhibition.
THE 1ST BALLARDIAN FESTIVAL OF HOME MOVIES: A competition for 1-minute films shot on mobile phones
COMPETITION REQUIREMENTS
1) [...]

ABOVE: Back cover from The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions, John Coulthart’s book of Lovecraft adaptations.
Originally published on ballardian.com, 16 July 2008.
I have been curious about Lovecraft for some time. When I was younger I saw the film of Reanimator. When I was a little older, I got beaten up by headbangers [...]