R.I.P. J.G.Ballard

I was saddened to read the news about the death of writer J.G.Ballard last night. But the amazing legacy of work he left behind will assure he'll never be forgotten. R.I.P.

J.G.Ballard 1930-2009

I have only been familiar with his work since last September, when I visited the exhibition about his work at the CCCB in Barcelona. I haven't read all his books, although several of them. But it left a profound and lasting impression on me and influenced my work possibly more than I even realize. His work has been important for both my photography and me as a writer.

I hope my final project will be worthy tribute to him. It was his work that triggered the start of the whole project for me. Thank you!

Following from the tribute by Simon Sellars, publisher of ballardian.com:

His work embraces dystopian scenarios, including the archetypal non-space often characterised as a deadening feature of late capitalism. But this is not simply a call for nihilism. Ballard's characters are not disengaged from their world. Rather, they embody a sense of resistance that derives from full immersion, a therapeutic confrontation with the powers of darkness, whereby merging with dystopian alienation negates its power.
This is predicated on concurrency: Ballard's writing turns objectivity into subjectivity, opens up gaps where there is room for new subjects. His scenarios are what I term 'affirmative dystopias', neither straight utopia nor straight dystopia, but an occupant of the interstitial space between them, perpetual oscillation between the poles – the 'yes or no of the borderzone', to use a phrase from his work.

Here, dystopia becomes the real utopia, and utopian ideals, typically represented as a stifling of the imagination, the true dystopia. He reinhabits the frame to present a clearinghouse in which corporate and national governance is overthrown and regoverned as a 'state of mind'.