J. G. Ballard | Science fiction writer | What is Science Fiction? | Good Afternoon |1977
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2024
- Mavis Nicholson speaks to Science fiction writer and novelist J. G. Ballard in this interview he speaks about his style of writing and how he is not ashamed to be known as a science fiction writer, he also speaks about his time in a Japanese internment camp during the world war two.
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This interview, which I've not seen for over 40 years, has always stuck with me because of the paintings that we get glimpses of (the original broadcast began with lingering shots of the paintings with Mavis Nicholson reading a passage from Ballard's short story 'Terminal Beach') has really stuck with me because of the paintings. I would have been about 14 at the time and wouldn't have known who Ballard was. Over the years when I thought about this interview I've come to think that it was probably Ballard given my memory of paintings of a derelict tropical compound. Its great seeing it again after all these years. In addition to Ballard's usual sharp responses (especially given what the next 45 years would bring to confirm his visions) the other thing that's interesting about this is the fact that this programme was broadcast on a British commercial TV channel in the middle of the afternoon and aimed at a mainstream audience. Compare that to now when the equivalent would be Lorraine Kelly interviewing Peter Andre about his new fitness book.... TV novacain basically, which is another Ballard prophecy to tick off the list.
My God - he was right about so many things. Both about then, definitely today and most probably in the future as well.
It’s amazing that this interview is over 40 years old and he could be talking about today. He had such foresight. I like the interviewer aswell because they seem very relaxed. It doesn’t seem like he’s there just to promote something.
One of my very favorite writers to listen to. So earnest and unaffected.
ironically he would have made a terrific Doctor Who
Well,his novel 'High Rise' would inspire the Dr Who serial 'Paradise Towers '
Little Seed Big Tree -- Ian Brown
"This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance."
-- Phiip K. Dick
"What our children have to fear is not the cars on the highways of tomorrow but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths."
-- J. G. Ballard
"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your INFORMED opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
-- Harlan Ellison
Ballard's "inner space" oriented science fiction, as well as that prose style of his in so many stories (like surgical precision or a clinician's 'anaysis') really provides a useful, working language for our present. I don't assume he intended to be a visionary or prophetic/prediction-oriented scifi writer but damn, he definitely succeeded at that game (like Philip K. Dick or William Gibson, many others). Managed to access the language of the future without getting so bothered with all the technical 'scientific' details. The Atrocity Exhibition and his short story 'The Drowned Giant' are some of the best stuff I've ever read!
JG Ballard writes prose like a poet
His story about a future where people are forbidden to interact in person and must only communicate through computers - including families - reminds me of the covid times we’re living in now. Let’s just hope we don’t act like this when we do come out the other side. The story is The Intensive Care Unit and it ends with a family tearing themselves apart because they have forgotten how to behave around each other. It’s frightening to think that we could regress in such a way.
A very disturbing story. It stayed with me for weeks after. Ballard was a genius.
@@davewatt7305 He certainly was a genius. Just finished his autobiography. He seemed like a decent gent too.
The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster in 1909 is worth a read. It's short but rather prescient.
It's fascinating to watch this now, a great writer, and his view of the world is amazing to me.
What's interesting about this is how they are both trying to make sense of their time, whereas people choose pre-given positions today as if they have stopped trying to make sense of it. They are both uncertain to some degree. Refreshing.
Except that People / media / films are CONSTANTLY talking about our place in society, what it's all about, the possibilities. With the internet, people are questioning everything far more than before, economics means people no longer expect to have 30 year careers at the same firm, or even in the same industry. The possibilities to go your own way in work and life are easier and more common now. We know more, we question more, we do more. 😎
@@JohnDoe-tx8lq i don't know about qiestion more. Maybe we do, but lately it feels like more and more people take things at face value now, based on their own views. It also feels like there's an increased amount of projection upon others(which I'm sure I'm guilty of myself).
Exactly. They both have their views going in, but they're willing to test them in discussion. Uncertainty is a virtue.
@@JohnDoe-tx8lq And with this purported “flexible working” and “hustle culture” comes more room for exploitation, less job security and workers rights and the further entrenchment of capitalist ideology, which implies that work is in someway virtuous and that if you are poor it’s because you don’t have the right “grindset” and should have worked harder.
Your comment is incredibly naive in its framing of modern society as somehow being organised to benefit the majority of normal working people.
@@djturbine7565 😄 looking back with your rose coloured glasses at a time of "stability and job security" when, apparently, someone was exploited! YOU are the one desperate for the good old days when the masses had even less options than today. How ironic.😆
A great wit, and a hard critic of snobbery in English literature. I think he was unclassifiable. Like Iain banks.
I haven't read any Iain Banks. Which one of his books would you recommend for me to read first?
Fascinating interview
Brilliant. Excellent interview.
Such a great writer, so interesting to listen to
I have just watched an interview from around 1987 which was quite haunting, as was this. Realising that the Internet had not been 'invented' at this time makes his words even more surreal. I love the books of Ballard, and wonder if he is still around - he would be 91 now. 🤔🇬🇧
Unfortunately Ballard passed away in 2009.
Very nice. Great questions too.
Ballard was pretty private about his personal life, but he was honest about it, as well. He rarely said anything about his children or his wife.
most excellent content ThamesTv. I shattered the thumbs up on your video. Keep on up the quality work.
"nutcases"? compared to people at sports matches, fundamentalist (or non-) churches, Wall St, et al a science fiction super fan is pretty benign.
Agreed - I'm really surprise how dismissive they BOTH are of these types of fans!
@@JohnDoe-tx8lq Why? He's not writing for Trekkie nuts.
Crappy literature, I'm well read.
@@adaptercrash, are you now? Must be fun being a wanker.
Back in the day NO ONE knew about plastic surgery, so changing the body in any way would be seen as some kind of pathology, if you are listening carefully that's the thing they are (obviously to them but not obvious to us because of our current cultures context) speaking about. The rest was a pretty new cultural phenomen that I think they are gently poking fun at as something they don't understand. Ballard actually highlights how popular it is. It really was a different time, his words about women not liking sci fi are dated but in context actually kind of kind.
I love this man.
Although I like MN, You feel she's rather playing to the gallery here with her choice of questions. JGB as usual was spot on, speculating on our future from the vantage of 1977.
It’s amusing to see how the interviewer’s low opinion of the science fiction “nutcases” is referring to the coders and culture shapers and fans who have inherited the earth.
That was a tongue in cheek comment I think.
Ballard claimed that SF was the authentic literature of the 20th century... I would nuance his claim to the millennial arc between the late 20th century and the unfolding 21st century. I encountered Ballard in 1964 via an excellent SF anthology called Spectrum 3. Ballards contribution was The Voices Of Time. The evocative, finely honed prose of this story showed me that SF could be far more than zapping aliens. My first purchase of a Ballard book was The Terminal Beach.... a superb array of short stories. I do think JG Ballard's special vision of the human psyche in the context of a strange, often disturbing future is best conveyed in his short stories.
I was 7 when Ballard did this interview. He was right.
True.
Thanks for the upload.
I quite like that she's completely ignorant about him and sci-fi in general.
Yeah she doesnt suck up or read into his comments , I actually am old enough to remember her face !!!😁
I'm fascinated by the paintings in the background. I'm a painter myself. Does anyone know who the artist is? Does anyone know how one would go about finding out who the artist is, this being dated from 1977? Thanks.
me too
I know, they often used Max Ernst paintings on his book covers. His more landscape-looking paintings resemble the style we see here, I think. But I am no art expert, so i might be wrong.
@@Trelkovsky69 that's interesting. I'll check it out. Ernst is a great artist. Thanks for the reply.
This interviewer is so patronising. But Ballard SHINES.
Hard to respect an interviewer who starts every question with BUT...
He was SO controversial back in the day it's difficult to imagine, AND ftr she's Welsh so words like 'but' (& 'look you' etc) are more natural to use in that position in that language. AND bear in mind most authors wouldn't have allowed themselves to be interviewed by a woman (women were only allowed a bank account 2 years before that interview), he was so ahead of his time.
She didn't seem patronising to me.
"You almost believe, don't you, that modern novelists slightly cop out of their responsibility by writing books about the emotions only."
-- Mavis Nicholson
Ballard believed science fiction to be the "true" literature of the 20th century. Question: Is there, will there be, a "true" literature of the 21st century?
Note: During this interview, Ballard gave context to a definition of "true" literature: "... Somebody who responds to a particular set of changes around him... My job is to respond to the world in which I live... and I see science and technology as the transforming factors."
-- J. G. Ballard
For the 21st century, what are the transforming factors? How have we responded to a particular set of changes around us? How will we respond?
Note: As artists, what is our job? During a 1977 lecture, William S. Burroughs answered that question.
"I'm postulating that the function of art, and I include in this category creative work in science -- that is, creation in the widest sense -- is to put us in touch with what we know and don't know that we know. You can't tell anybody anything he doesn't know already."
-- William S. Burroughs
Beyond -- Estas Tonne
"... and you know what the beyond is? It's that connection... that connection is like a lighthouse. It's something that we can connect to as a unified field which is beyond words, beyond the mind."
-- Estas Tonne
"I aim to misbehave."
-- Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity
Ballard's ATROCITY EXHIBITION is the most radical--and disturbing-- book I've ever read.
Tell me more about this 'science fiction' of which you speak?
Oh how 'the bad news' is coming true.
The women who wouldn't get his fiction then would be outright antagonistic to him today. I can't imagine him being able to publish a book like Rushing to Paradise in 2020 unless it was self published.
Thanks for uploading, it was enjoyable :)
why's that? a book about an all-female paradise island? sounds lovely.
@@earinsound Not sure if you're pulling my leg or if you read a misleading synopsis of the book.
@@earinsound The main female character in it is, technically, a serial killer.
He could totally have it published today. What are you talking about?
She said I haven't read much science fiction (but you're stuff I can't really explain) ...why are you trying to frightening me ...I would have spit out my milk..
If he thought technology had staggeringly and somewhat alarmingly changed human life back in 1976, boy oh boy would he be doing backflips if he were still alive today...
well he died in 2009 so he saw some of it.
@@dcanmoreSure, but the last few years things have really started to become outrageous, what with AI, deepfakes, self-driving cars, plans to terraform Mars, robotics, cybernetic brain implants, online disinformation and censorship, advancements in social media and smartphones, military tech, etcetera. Things have REALLY started to take off now, and it's fucking frightening. Most people seem to think all of this is going to be a net good in the end, but I'm a serious doubter as far as that is concerned, and it would have been very interesting to see Ballard's take on all these recent developments...
Most of the ideas behind today's technology were already available in 1977, oddly enough.
@@ajs41 True, but they were for the most part just ideas at that point. To see them become actual reality, and the effect they have on society, is another thing entirely.
'3 years was enough to institutionalise them' - 2 years into pan-dem-ic
Want to feel old? Ballard was 47 in this interview, and now (November 2023) the actor that played the young Jim Graham in the movie 'Empire of the Sun', Christian Bale, is 49!
You know the mantra - the geeks will inherent the earth. Gates, Nadella, Cook, Zuckerberg, Bozos, Musk. Tell someone from the 1977 the world of 2020 they would find it incredible.
Both these two were born in 1930.
"Lesser of two weavels" 17:03, smfh.
straight line --- kafka - orwell - sartre - bradbury - ballard - self
Not sure you're right about Kafka. With the exception of "In the Penal Colony," he's critiquing administrative/bureaucratic violence, which isn't exactly technology driven/mediated, as one would think about sci-fi. However, I might also include Camus (The Plague) and Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude).
More like Poe-Conrad-Celine-(Bradbury ok)-Ballard. Ballard once said he was one of the bad boys of literature "like Celine". He praised Poe and Bradbury as short story writers. Conrad runs through Ballard's apocalyptica novels. Celine wrote a ton of technology into his novel Death on the Installment Plan, probably the first real ground plan of the Twentieth Century. Style and humor completely different than Ballard though.
@@celineburt8576 ...And Celine was a virulent antisemite.
no
@sg639 Orwell and Sartre are not science fiction writers either. Mewted was just delineating Ballard's thematic and ideological heritage (although I myself perceive Ballard's worldview as much closer to Huxley's Brave New World than 1984).
No way a great conversation like this could take place here in Western Europe right now on tv without degenerating into some sort of social justice activisim.
Lol. Ballard was a total social justice activist. Jesus Christ. Have you read his fiction? Every book he ever wrote was about some kind of social justice activism.
She's really focused on this camp thing. wtf
He ended up writing about his experience in the book - Empire of the Sun.
Look at the global fck up we are living through now ,no matter wot side your on !!💀💀
"You should have some qualifications" - "Yes, I live in 1977!" 😁
He talked a lot of sense about threats that have become invisible.
It's odd how dismissive they are of 'Si Fi conventions', as if they are a weird cult, full of nutters. People enjoy dressing up and talking about their fav characters - shocking!! Yet (she) would be fine with fanatics of Mr Darcy and the fashion in Jane Austen fiction.
Sci-fi & Fantasy Cosplay is so massive now, completely embraced by the media. - Which reminds me, I must clean my body hugging latex suit for next weekends meeting... 😜
He sounds like Stewie from Family Guy
Incomplete.
posh and hyper-intensified
He's not particularly posh, he just talks like most middle-class people did at the time.
The sage of Shepperton. @devereuxmatthew