► 2019: Simon Sellars interviewed by Brendan C. Byrne, Medium
‘My Dream of Flying to Marker Island’

Sellars: “I feel like this culture sent me mad, and also i think the scars of doing a PhD never fade. It is such a lonely and isolating process, and especially so when you are in a discipline that no one cares about or values. In many ways, I still see myself as a failed academic, but if I’d stuck with it, I’d never have produced Applied Ballardianism.”

► Simon Sellars interviewed by Robin Mackay, Urbanomic:
‘So Many Unrealities’

Sellars: “The humour comes from how ridiculous I found myself spouting all that theoretical nonsense. But it’s also outsider humour. There’s a strong theme in the book of feeling uncomfortable in one’s own skin and it manifests in all kinds of ways: being on the fringes of academia, being unsure of one’s sexuality and masculinity, being Australian and on the edge of the world—geographically and culturally. It’s why the narrator consistently feels as though he’s floating outside of his body.”

► Simon Sellars interviewed by Tadas Vinokur, Aleatory Books:
‘Simon Sellars on Applied Ballardianism‘

Sellars: “Fear drives the consumerist engine: the fear of missing out, of exclusion, of being an inferior being. Fear sells. I always remember that guy from the show Lost doing an ad for some kind of men’s beauty regime. He rubbed this type of greasy cream into his face, turned to the camera and said: ‘I’ll never allow myself to look tired.’ How insulting to working parents, for whom tiredness is the default mode of being, or to people who scrimp and save working two jobs to stay alive. This plastic freak was a sort of ideal replicant paraded before us to shame us into tucking our beer bellies in, into staying perky and peppy no matter what. I despise him.”

► Simon Sellars interviewed by Robert Barry, The Quietus:
‘One Small Node Of Reality Left: Applied Ballardianism’

Sellars: “I don’t think theory-fiction is a genre. I certainly don’t feel part of any movement. Theory-fiction is more like an attitude or something. People don’t take theory seriously anymore. Everyone’s bored with it. Philosophy memes scorch everything in their wake.”

► Simon Sellars interviewed by Lee Rourke, 3:AM Magazine:
Rat Cunning and Bloodshed: An Interview with Simon Sellars

Sellars: “Ballard always said his work could take place anywhere because it’s about the flattening out of experience, the emptying out of reality — the way major cities and suburbs worldwide become indistinguishable in an endless exurban monoculture. Melbourne is as Ballardian as anywhere — more so, because it’s pure. We don’t have thousands of years of culture to distract us. Just rat cunning and a tragic history of bloodshed.”

► Simon Sellars interviewed by Andrew Frost, The Art Life:
‘Applied Ballardianism: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.’

Sellars: “Now that the dust has settled, I feel liberated. With the publication of this project, I have finally completed my education at the feet of Ballard, almost twenty-five years on from when I wrote my first paper on him. The way I view the world, under his influence, has finally been solidified and I am OK with where it is has landed. It’s been a wild and crazy time living my life under the Ballardian lens, dangerous at times, as the book hints, although never less than thrilling. I owe Mr Ballard everything, but it’s time to move on.”

► Simon Sellars interviewed by Meta-Nomad, Hermitix:
‘Applied Ballardianism.’

Sellars: “My narrator struggles to interpret the Ballardian view and internalises it too much. So he brings in other theorists to pick that apart, only to plunge deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. He enters various layers of reality until he can no longer find his way home, and the journey can only end in one of two scenarios: either the apocalypse or total paranoia.”