ANGHARAD WILLIAMS | KUNSTVEREIN FÜR DIE RHEINLANDE UND WESTFALLEN | PASSE-AVANT | REVIEW

In her 2014 article Sex and Wheels for the Guardian, Zadie Smith revisits at J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash. Following on the writer’s perception of his work as the “first pornographic novel about technology”, Smith reflects on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s statement that language is better understood through its use, and not through its absolute meaning. She rises the question of whether pornography isn’t ultimately “the purest example of humans ‘asking for the use’.” In Crash, the protagonists race and crash their automobiles, using its dramatic momentum to get laid, perform sexual intercourse, and feel more alive. The exchange between organic and mechanical bodies, and their fluids, blur “the distinction between humans and objects [which becomes] too small to be meaningful.” Everything and everybody, becomes thus a thing and uses each other; cars become flesh and humans become machines. In Smith’s words, “things are using things” in this dystopian tale. [ read more… ]