J.G. Ballard

  • Christopher Petit – London Orbital (2002)

    2001-2010Christopher PetitDocumentaryExperimentalIain SinclairUnited Kingdom

    Film Description
    Visionary film about the M25. A road movie (literally) and a cinematic excursion into the difference between driving and walking, film and tape, time and memory, sound and image. Also a look at covert arms deals, Essex gangsters, drug dealing and Thatcher and Pinochet as vampire-lovers.

    Iain Sinclair’s territory has long been the hidden geography and psycho-geography of Britain. He is adept at drawing out the character of place, and in 2001 he walked the perimeter of the M25 in an attempt to understand its true nature and influence. This resulted in his recently published book, London Orbital.Read More »

  • Harley Cokeliss – Crash! (1971)

    Harley Cokeliss1971-1980ExperimentalShort FilmUnited Kingdom

    A surreal, moody short about the fetishization of automobiles and auto accidents.

    Short film produced by the BBC about JG Ballard’s Crash. “The film was a product of the most experimental, darkest phase of Ballard’s career. It was an era of psychological blowback from the sudden, shocking death of his wife in 1964, an era that had produced the cut-up ‘condensed novels’ of Atrocity plus a series of strange collages and ‘advertisers’ announcements’. […] After Freud’s exploration within the psyche it is now the outer world of reality which must be quantified and eroticised.’ Later there were further literary experiments, concrete poems and ‘impressionistic’ film reviews, and an aborted multimedia theatrical play based around car crashes. After that came an actual gallery exhibition of crashed cars, replete with strippers and the drunken destruction of the ‘exhibits’ by an enraged audience.”Read More »

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