More on JG Ballard

Taking a break from work, I tracked down a few Ballard related links. Surprisingly, I think the conventional media often reads him more deeply than the science fiction community. Judging from the comments, the general community grasps the significance of his work with more subtly than science fiction fans. Ballard was the STS writer, his gift was exploding the psychology of the technological age. If the Sci-Fi community passes him by, paying him homage more as a matter of course than actual understanding, it may indicate that too much exposure to the tropes of SF creates a kind of future burn, an uncritical acceptance of the positives of technology, and that when confronted with Ballard's bleak, obsessive viewpoint, SF fans shrink back.

But the general population, caught between Science: The Endless Frontier and Frankenstein, is ready to be challenged. Ballard struck a deep chord with people across the spectrum. Ballard is uninimitable, but his ideas were better than his style, and if SF is to break out of the ghetto, we the SF community should return to Ballard's questions. How does technology give life to our obsessions, with consequences for our 'humanity'? What is the link between the dark reptilian center of the mind, and the chrome and glass towers of the future? How can we exist in technologically warped spaces, with equally subjective time? Ballard rarely asked 'why'; the search for answers is more important than the search for causes. Technology is. It is humanity's child, and it has a life of its own, a life with direction and momentum beyond the control of the scrambling masses.

http://io9.com/5221560/remembering-jg-ballards-science-fiction-legacy (io9, scifi)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/apr/19/jgballard (the news media)

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=10&title=no_future_why_jg_ballard_is_rock_s_favou&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 (NME, did you know he was considered the inspiration for the New Wave movement?)

http://www.obit-mag.com/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5348 (obit, conventional)

http://www.thestar.com/article/623474 (Cronenberg on Ballard)

http://jalopnik.com/5218763/jg-ballard-1930+2009 (Car blog on Ballard, particularly good comments)

Bonus

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/25/dying-fall-jg-ballard (one last story)
http://www.ballardian.com/rattling-other-peoples-cages-the-jg-ballard-interview (an interview with Ballard)

J.G. Ballard is dead.

Ballard the masters at capturing the alienation and isolation of the 20th century. His stories contained the elemental horror of HP Lovecraft, but for Ballard the anti-human monstrosities were not uncaring and ancient universal forces, but the technology that man had unleashed. Enlightenment and the atom bomb, sex and the automobile, Ballard showed how our relationship with technology changed mankind into something new and different. Ballard was not anti-technology, nor was he a simple progressive technological determinist. He fully grasped the contradictions and majesty of modern science and the modern man.

Ballard's strength was also his weakness. As the 20th century became the 21st, his writing became less relevant, his themes solidified. Having an eponymous adjective is both an honor and curse, but there are few words that more accurately describe modern urban life than 'Ballardian.' I hope that the science-fiction community takes up his challenge to critically examine our continually changing, increasingly personal relationship with science and technology. His vision will be sorely missed.

Self-Organizing Maps

I created these visualizations of the output from a neural network algorithm for embedding a complex perceptrual space in two dimensions. It would be very interesting to apply this algorithm to other visual data sets. If applied to auditory patches it could also be a useful generator of electronic music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organizing_map
http://tedlab.mit.edu/~dr/Lens/

edit :

I had a mildly disheartening realization earlier today: this network was only able to create a map with smooth variation between written digits because the training set included ambiguous or intermediate examples. At the moment I can't think of a way to get a smoothly varying map if say, all we have is ten perfect digits. There ought to be a way though.

Childhood in a Needle

The syringe lay on the table, glistening in the fluorescent lights of the clinic. “You know what this is, right?” Langdon asked. The doctor was tired, bags under his red-rimmed eyes, shoulders tense from too many arguments with the directors and the review board and his patient.

“Yes, GMBh neural replasticizer,” Mallory answered flatly. He sat opposite Langdon, draped in a teal hospital down with his arms hanging loosely by his sides. His sunken gaze scanned the small room methodically, taking in the light green walls, the lights, the two metal chairs, the flimsy folding table and the syringe. Every thirteen seconds he would start again, from top left to bottom right in smooth raster sweeps. He had been doing it ever since he had been admitted to the clinic.

“This may be the answer to your, ah condition,” Langdon said. “But the treatment is experimental. It will erase your memories, your skills, your personality. There is a very real possibility that your mind will never be restored. We are entering uncharted territory, and while I do not mean to be mystical, your soul is at stake!”

The doctor's dramatics left Mallory unmoved. “Do you seriously believe I value any part of my existence? I am an empty vessel. Once, I was a scientist, but then theories stopped making sense. I had a wife; she left me. My friends are fading from memory, we no longer have anything in common. The replasticizers are my second chance.” His dead eyes met the doctor's. “This is what I want.”

Langdon sighed, “I knew you would say that. I just wanted to offer you one last chance. Let's get this over with.” He stood up and walked around the table. He folded Mallory's ear back, placed the wavering tip of the needle against his skin. Closing his eyes, he drove the syringe home and pressed the plunger, injecting the neural replasticizers directly into Mallory's brain.

Mallory tensed in his chair, shook his head as the needle was withdrawn. “Tastes blue.” He muttered. His fingers felt like sausages, swollen with fluid. He lifted his hand to his face, turned it around and around as he marveled at the geometry of his palm. He wanted to tell Langdon what he was feeling, but he could not figure out how words worked. The doctor's concerned face melted into meaningless planes of color. His head fell back, and he looked directly into the light as half-blind eyes struggled to make sense of the word. The corners of the room stretched to infinity, Mallory's self dissolving into a million half-articulate possibilities.