explore the next five minutes rather than the next 500 years
19:36 | 13-04-2012 | Lifeform, Literature | No Comments
хороший разговор о Балларде устами Брюса Стерлинга, В. Вейла и Симона Селларса:
Simon Sellars: It’s a misreading when people say Ballard’s books are a negative vision of the world – you hear that so often about Ballard’s work. But for the reasons you say, the characters are trying to make sense of chaos, and that transforms the world.
исключительно на примерах — вот, скажем, о жизненном пространстве:
Simon Sellars: <...> he saw the way that we’re entering this globally homogeneous space, a sort of eventless present as he likes to call it, where you virtually can go to any country in the world. He talks about the areas around motorways and airports as a metaphor for this homogeneous space, and I think he saw the implications of where this is all heading.
о повести, что легла в основу одной из самых моих любимых экранизаций:
Bruce Sterling: To me, the thing that I find really useful about “Crash” is that most science fiction writers, if you asked them to write science fiction about cars, would write about, say, a flying car or a car that’s also a submarine. They would not write about an intense psychosexual fixation with cars, or the car as another method of being, or people who are so dependent on cars they can’t get through a day without cars. They certainly would not illuminate the truth about cars, which is they kill more of us than wars.
There’s probably not a person in this audience who hasn’t had a loved one injured or maimed or killed in a car. That’s just the truth about cars.
Simon Sellars: <...> he’s also aware of the seductive nature of cars and technology and speed.
или о таких простых вещах, как секс:
Bruce Sterling: I’ve been saying Paris Hilton is a very Ballardian figure. Here you have somebody whose major reason for being a celebrity is this kind of unsought sexual transgression which was blown up through the media. It’s not really like that fantastic an act of sex that Paris Hilton has, it’s not like she’s a sexual athlete of some kind, it’s merely that she’s a minor celebrity who became a major celebrity and was able to work it, to industrialise that and build upon it with the perfume and the record and clothing line and the Los Angeles celebrity life, really just construct a life out of elements of 1960s transgression.
о мобильном телефоне:
V. Vale: <...> there’s a huge component of theatre in everyone’s life. Ballard was the first that I read to point out how the invention and widespread adoption of the cellphone has led to almost everyone becoming a sort of actor.
и других очевидных трансформациях:
Simon Sellars: I think that in the 60s he saw how advertising was becoming basic in how we were shifting towards a visual culture.
ровно так все так и есть, да — читайте его книги, они замечательные.