The only possible Ballardianism is a lucid apocalyptic paranoia, theoretically incomprehensible and logically unsustainable, but capable of dissecting in detail a reality that becomes increasingly complex and beyond the reach of human cognitive abilities. Nothing human makes it out of the near-future and, paraphrasing Burroughs, who believed that Ballard touched the “nonsexual roots of sexuality,” Ballardianism shows us the essentially non-human roots of humanity’s so-called progress and future. “I imagined myself propelled to my death by forces I could not fathom, just like the victim in Crash who smashes into the narrator’s car and is hurled through the windscreen, striking the bonnet.”
There’s a new article up on Nero Editions taking excellent account of so many of the recent knotted blogosphere debates, tying them in a commendably neat but haunted bow, starting with the “art and politics” debate from a few months ago that took place in orbit of Simon Sellars’ recent book Applied Ballardianism, and hitching it to notions of Landian templexity and U/Acc anti-praxis.
A few of my own blog posts are linked to here but I very much doubt I could see the connections between them as clearly as Monacelli does here. It’s surely the best account so far of all these different threads that have proliferated over the course of the last few years online.
An essential primer. Go check it out!