Flight And Imagination

Flight And Imagination
Chris Hall talks about the dark side of capitalism
and the deceptions of reality with J.G. Ballard


Walking along Oxford Street the day after I finished reading JG Ballard's
new novel, Super-Cannes, it struck me, literally, the total acceptance of
the substrate of violence in consumer societies when it manifests itself. A
silent, monolithic crowd hurtled down either side of the road as I walked
from Centrepoint to Oxford Circus. I counted the number of times that I was
physically forced to move out of the way or get hit head on (five). I
counted the number of times I was pranged, bumped or rear-shunted (four).
It's said that London traffic moves at an average speed of 11mph, but
pedestrian traffic can't be far behind. Indeed, it's not too fanciful to see
in these crowds how the car has influenced our spatio-temporal perception.
You see overtaking manoeuvres, you see people checking their rear views, as
it were, with a glance behind before moving out. There is the same
frustration at slow moving traffic: the same parameters of territoriality
are in operation.

http://www.spikemagazine.com/1100jgballard.htm