Fiction

Applied Ballardianism: Memoir from a Parallel Universe

Written by Simon Sellars.
Published by Urbanomic.

Fleeing the excesses of 90s cyberculture, a young researcher sets out to systematically analyse the obsessively reiterated themes of a writer who prophesied the disorienting future we now inhabit: cult author J.G. Ballard, prophet of the post-postmodern, voluptuary of the car crash, surgeon of the pathological virtualities pulsing beneath the surface of reality.

Plagued by obsessive fears, defeated by the tedium of academia, yet still certain that everything connects to Ballard, his academic thesis collapses into a series of delirious travelogues, deranged speculations and tormented meditations on time, memory, and loss.

Abandoning literary interpretation and renouncing all scholarly distance, he finally accepts the deep assignment that has run throughout his entire life, and embarks on a rogue fieldwork project: Applied Ballardianism, a new discipline and a new ideal for living.

Only the darkest impulses, the most morbid obsessions and the most apocalyptic paranoia can uncover the technological mutations of inner space.

Published by Urbanomic.
Distributed via The MIT Press.

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