Video Art

The department will be mainly the preserve of my former assistant Cécile Menon, who understands these things. It’s not, I hope, that my mind is closed against a new art form. By now, of course, it is no longer new. But neither am I, and there is only so much time to get out and about. Cécile actually knows these people and she comes back with stuff I would never have dreamed of. My only task is to decide whether it is imaginatively alive or programmatically dead. The field, by its very nature, is a heaven-sent opportunity for the uninspired. But Cécile can spot the inspired every time, and invariably, after I watch for a while, I am won over, and later on — the sure test — I find myself clicking back to see whatever the hell it was happen again.