The Texture of Modernity in J. G. Ballard’s Crash, Concrete Island and High-Rise

Groes, Sebastian

doi:10.1057/9780230346482_8

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The foregoing reading and re-reading of High-Rise is a simple tourist guide of sorts. It is no more or less privileged than that of prior critics, who have variously construed Ballard's novel as an exercise in Jungian depth psychology (Oramus, 2015), a form of hyperorganizational space (Zhang et al, 2008), a post-industrial re-enactment of Dante's Divine Comedy (Groes, 2012), and a critical treatise on modern Brutalist architecture, where 'Laing' refers not to the celebrity psychoanalyst but a major British building contractor that constructed many of the country's most notorious apartment blocks (Beauman, 2014).…”

Section: Up! For Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Up Rising: Rehabilitating J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise with R.D. Laing and Lauren Berlant

Bradshaw

Brown

2018

Environ Plan D

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The balance between fiction and reality has changed significantly in the past decades. Increasingly their roles are reversed. We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kindmass-merchandising, advertising…the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel.-Ballard (1995, iii) A giant of 'literary geography' (Beaumont and Martin, 2016), J.G. Ballard ranks among the foremost critics, chroniclers and cartographers of consumer society's outer limits (Coverley, 2010). Suburban shopping malls, office parks, ring roads, drive-ins, flyovers, underpasses, traffic islands, leisure centres, cineplexes and billboard-festooned thoroughfares are his source material and satirical target (Baxter, 2008). In a long line of 'concrete and steel' novels, from Crash to Kingdom Come, Ballard lifts the lid on postmodern civilisation and reveals the discontents within. More than that, the Marco Polo of metropolitan peripheries shows how a cesspit of consumer psychosis seethes beneath the placid, placeless surface of anodyne, Ikeatized anonymity (Calcott and Shephard, 1998). Whether it be the coastal holiday resort in Cocaine Nights, the high-tech business park in Super-Cannes, or the luxury apartment block in High-Riseinitially entitled Up!-Ballard's ostensibly utopian settings unfailingly descend into dystopian anarchy, where blood is spilt, gore pores forth and late capitalism's societal stranglehold is strengthened.

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Section: Up! For Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Described by Royal as the ‘most true tenant’ (p.101), his name gestures toward the notable psychiatric theorist, Dr. Ronald David Laing (cf. Brigg, 1985; Groes, 2012; O’Hara, 2012). Ballard, it seems, teases well-informed readers but also actively engages theory by artfully alluding to his sources of inspiration.…”

Section: Placing Critics On the Couchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Up Rising: Rehabilitating J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise with R.D. Laing and Lauren Berlant

Bradshaw

Brown

2018

Environ Plan D

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“…Even their names, Royal, Laing and Wilder expose their characters to a certain extent 3 . As critics such as Groes (2012), Sellers and O'Hara (2012), and Bradshaw and Brown (2018) have also noted, Royal, Laing and Wilder come to represent the classical social groups of lower, middle and upper classes. As the building's technical operation system starts to fail, the residents slowly begin their "voyages of initiation" in a concrete jungle.…”

Section: Late Capitalism Schizophrenia and Residents Of The War Machinementioning

confidence: 99%

Abstract Machines in J. G. Ballard’s "High-rise"

Tuğlu Atamer

2023

J. engl. stud. (Logroño, internet)

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This article sets out to explore how J. G. Ballard’s High-Rise (1975) can be read through Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of rhizome, abstract machines and schizophrenia. The social structure of the Seventies in England, High-Rise as a building and High Rise as a novel are connected to one another to portray a rhizome that manifests a dystopian answer to the inquiry of human nature. High-Rise can be studied as an abstract machine since it is a machine of fiction through which the readers question the meaning of humanity. High-Rise, the building, is also an abstract machine in itself since it operates as a means to reveal the constant process of becoming under late capitalism. Therefore, this article aims to reveal the Deleuze-Guattarian dynamics in High-Rise in relation to High-Rise, the building, by focusing on the social elements that expose the schizophrenic aspects of late capitalism.

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Gökdelen’in Beton Duvarları Altında Modernist Mimari Ütopyanın Çöküşü

Yeşil¹

2019

Moment Journal

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Bu çalışma, öncelikle gökdelen türü yapıların modernite ve modern yaşam içindeki yerini araştıracak, daha sonra da modernist hareketin ardında yatan estetik felsefeyi Le Corbusier rehberliğinde tanımlayacaktır. Ancak Le Corbusier'nin fikirleri, başta Henri Lefebvre, Theodor W. Adorno ve Max Horkheimer olmak üzere kültür ve mekân çalışan düşünürlerin ortaya koydukları eleştirel perspektif temelinde değerlendirilecek ve J. G. Ballard'ın Gökdelen'i bu eleştirel bağlama yerleştirilecektir. Romanda "steril ve uygar" bir modernist mekân olarak sunulan gökdelenin sahip olduğu erotik ve "ludik" özelliklerin, eril şiddetle yeniden iktidarlandırılan bir barbarlık entropisine dönüştüğünü görüyoruz. Kültürel erozyonla birlikte görülen bu şiddet ve yıkımın mimari tetikleyicilerini aramak ve bu mimari tutumun arkasındaki felsefi dayanakları analiz etmek çalışmanın öncelikli meselesidir.

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The Texture of Modernity in J. G. Ballard’s Crash, Concrete Island and High-Rise

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Up Rising: Rehabilitating J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise with R.D. Laing and Lauren Berlant

Up Rising: Rehabilitating J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise with R.D. Laing and Lauren Berlant

Abstract Machines in J. G. Ballard’s "High-rise"

Gökdelen’in Beton Duvarları Altında Modernist Mimari Ütopyanın Çöküşü

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