It’s odd… When you consign yourself to a certain path of thinking, ideas previously unknown arrive to walk with you. Thinking about body as landscape has conjured similar ideas presented by different people. The book “Atrocity Exhibition” by G.J. Ballard processes that idea in several places within its pages. Here’s an example: For some reason the planes of his face failed to intersect, as if their true resolution took place in some as yet invisible dimension, or required elements other than those provided by his own character and musculature.
Another great landscape/body reference from the same book: A hundred-foot-long panel that seemed to represent a section of sand dune… Looking at it more closely Doctor Nathan realized that it was an immensely magnified portion of the skin over the iliac crest…
William S. Burroughs put it eloquently in his introduction to the book: The line between inner and outer landscapes is breaking down. Earthquakes can result from seismic upheavals within the human mind. The whole random universe of the industrial age is breaking down into cryptic fragments.
Right before I started the Ghost Conversation project I happened to see see the film Control. It’s a bio-pic of Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis. Since then I’ve been on a heavy Joy Division kick. For some reason the darkness made real through the music resonates deeply with me. Browsing through a wikipedia article on Joy Division’s album Control I was amazed to find it reference the book Atrocity Exhibition! Atrocity Exhibition is the title track on Control. Apparently Ian Curtis was very fond of the book and worked it into his lexicon of imagery.
Was I subconsciously picking up on Ballards imagery in Curtis’ music? Do themes in Joy Divisions music share a certain resonating intellectual similarity with Ballards writings? Do I somehow resonate with the same themes presented by both artists? Perhaps my ideas are not my own and I’ve unknowingly tapped into a collectively unconscious universal theme.