Influence
Ballard is cited as an important forebear of the cyberpunk movement by Bruce Sterling in his introduction to the seminal Mirrorshades anthology. Ballard's parody of American politics, the pamphlet "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan", which was subsequently included as a chapter in his experimental novel The Atrocity Exhibition, was photocopied and distributed by pranksters at the 1980 Republican National Convention. In the early 1970s, Bill Butler, a bookseller in Brighton, was prosecuted under UK obscenity laws for selling the pamphlet.
According to literary theorist Brian McHale, The Atrocity Exhibition is a "postmodernist text based on science fiction topoi"
In Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard hailed Crash as the first great novel of the universe of simulation.
Lee Killough directly cites Ballard's seminal Vermilion Sands short stories as the inspiration for her collection Aventine, also a backwater resort for celebrities and eccentrics where bizarre or frivolous novelty technology facilitates the expression of dark intents and drives. Terry Dowling's milieu of Twilight Beach is also influenced by the stories of Vermilion Sands and other Ballard works.
Ballard also had an interest in the relationship between various media. In the early 1970s, he was one of the trustees of the Institute for Research in Art and Technology.
Read more about this topic: J. G. Ballard
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Cultural expectations shade and color the images that parents- to-be form. The baby product ads, showing a woman serenely holding her child, looking blissfully and mysteriously contented, or the television parents, wisely and humorously solving problems, influence parents-to-be.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“Mothers have as powerful an influence over the welfare of future generations, as all other causes combined.”
—John Abbott. The Mother at Home; or the Principles of Maternal Duty, John Abbott, Crocker and Brewster (1833)
“I believe that the influence of woman will save the country before every other power.”
—Lucy Stone (1818–1893)