Day: January 27, 2008

Via Ballardian:

In 1984 J.G. Ballard called for a ‘Festival of Home Movies’ and 24 years on we’re happy to oblige: announcing our latest competition, to promote JGB’s forthcoming autobiography, Miracles of Life. Presented by ballardian.com and HarperCollins UK, the competition will utilise ‘modern electronics’ as specified above, of an especial type that Ballard with his prodigious clairvoyant powers came close to envisaging: the mobile phone (or cell phone, for our North American cousins).

The requirement is that you shoot a one-minute film on a Ballardian theme using your mobile phone’s video camera only, no post-production allowed. That’s too much for my Motorola (above) which has never proved itself able to record more than a few seconds of continuous video for reasons unknown. The competition prize is a copy of Miracles of Life along with the forthcoming HarperCollins reissues of Ballard’s Millennium People, The Drought, The Crystal World, The Drowned World and The Unlimited Dream Company.

The constraints for this are pretty tough if all the editing has to be done in camera. I anticipate a lot of entries showing static shots of motorway traffic, windswept concrete vistas or imitations of CCTV. Anyone wishing for some offbeat inspiration can go and watch the One Minute Movies made by The Residents to accompany their Commercial Album in 1980.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• JG Ballard book covers