Before we depart this Ballardian netherworld of motorway ramps, we thought we might indulge ourselves a little by showing some spectacularly bizzare pictures of spectacularly bizzare architecture in Japan.
One of our members, who played a crucial role in the birth of this blog, recommended that we try to spice it up a bit and occasionally get away from the excess of doom and gloom that our normal subject matter involves. I don’t suppose this is quite what she had in mind, but ‘V’ this is for you. You can find more of these pics via the link below;
Concrete Islands In Japan- A Ballardian Overview
The word ‘Ballardian’ refers to the work of JG Ballard who wrote such classics of dystopian society and post-modern alienation as ‘Crash’, ‘Concrete Island’ and ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’.
He later wrote ‘Empire Of The Sun’, his most famous and successful work, if only because it was adapted into a hugely successful epic movie by Steven Spielberg. It was semi-autobiographical, based on his experiences as an english schoolboy, living in Shanghai, who became separated from his parents during the Japanese invasion of China during the second world war. He spent most of the war in a Japanese internment camp.
Arguably Ballard’s best works of dystopia and personal alienation were located in and around the Westway flyover, which cuts through North Kensington at rooftop level. For obvious reasons the Westway captured Ballard’s deliciously warped imagination, particularly during his early period, when was presumably still traumatised from his childhood experiences and hence wrote and published his most bizarre and perverse (?) work.
Grenfell Action Group 