Photo: drained swimming pool, Barr Wood, Scotland.

I knew it was coming, but it is with a heavy heart that I must report that JG Ballard has died.

I would make some kind of tribute, but I’ve already been doing so for years:

  • This gallery has a four-part adaptation of a “novel” which Ballard originally planned to publish on billboards.
  • This is an unabridged adaptation of “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan” from his greatest and most difficult novel, The Atrocity Exhibition.
  • This is an adaptation of “You and Me and the Continuum”, also unabridged, also from The Atrocity Exhibition.
  • My ugly tour bus photos seem “Ballardian” in a way. Certainly these ones.

Photo: apartment building fire, Harbin, China.

I can only think of one or two other artists who have had such an influence on how I view the world, for better or for worse. I’m very sad he died.


Photo: abandoned rocket test platform, San Jose, California.

0 comments