Reality check

A note on the interchangeability of reality:

“Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It’s going to be commercial and nasty at the same time.” – J.G Ballard

And this:

“The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam.” - J.G Ballard

A prophecy indeed. How worrysome that after Ballard wrote that particular piece of future noir, the list didn’t end with the last item on it. On the contrary, it has spiralled out of all and any control. The image of a frantic Henry Rollins, shouting: “America, is killing its youth!” comes instantly to mind.

Also, it brings to mind Ballards controversial novel, Crash. On the pervasive theme of people sexually addicted to mutilations via particpating in carcrashes. A postmodern-modern novel if there ever was one written. Or filmed (Cronenberg). If nothing will make you a careful driver, take is a sort of Clockwork Orange-themed therapy. You will never drive again without visualising a relentless, fiery-eyed Elias Koteas in the lane next to you.

Screen cap from David Cronenbergs, "Crash"