Crash, end

Throughout “Crash,” Ballard poetically creates vivid automobile collision sequences. In such visions he attempts to bridge the human body with the violent technology of a swift, chromium death cage: the car. However, consistently Ballard has alluded to the aeroplane, or “glass dragonfly” of the sky (209). This “motionless” machination is not too far different from the automobile. Automobiles claim more lives and carnage than aeroplanes. Ballard could potentially be implying this referring to automobiles always as “chromium” and aeroplanes always as “glass.” Whereas one seems more brittle, the other seems more durable. In this sense, aeroplanes appear as “all or nothing” objects. That is, either they reach their destination safely or they crumble and burn to pieces in some technical mishap often leaving no chance for survivors. Automobiles don’t have this 50/50 gamble. To Ballard, in a collision they are doomed to crash, twist, and warp their rigid bodies yet leave room to deform surviving victims. The conception of a chromium vehicle sounds solid, less likely to collapse under pressure. Nevertheless, when such seemingly indestructible material does eventually subside, it redefines the human anatomy. The aeroplane passenger or roadside pedestrian are irrelevant. It is the person inside the cockpit of the automobile who is the star in Ballard’s vision. It is he who experiences the physical metamorphosis such violent and necessary technology is responsible for. As curious and sexual creatures, Ballard has us adapt to the prevalent scars and woulds on victims’ bodies as we relearn our thirst for something exciting and unknown, similar to a lusty teenager thrusting himself into an uncharted world of sex. Indeed, Ballard’s volatile concoction of contorted chromium and unfiltered sexual fantasy allows him to release the foul stench of technology we have grown to rely on so adamantly.