Currently running at the Bruce Castle Museum in Haringey, north London, from April to July 2019, is a small exhibition on local film pioneer Robert Paul (1869-1943). Entitled Animatograph! How cinema was born in Haringey it traces the one small corner of the achievements of a man who, looking back on his life might haveRead More
To the Royal Academy on a Friday evening, joining those neglectful souls rushing to see the Bill Viola / Michelangelo exhibition before it closes (on March 31st). It was very impressive – it could hardly have been otherwise. The exhibition brings together the work of video artist (for want of a better term) Bill Viola,Read More
You led me into the trackless woods, My falling stars, my dark endeavour. Anna Akhmatova, from ‘To My Poems’ (translated by Lyn Coffin) What joy there is in coming across the great work of art that you had not been expecting. The writer new to you whose words say exactly what you had been, unknowingly,Read More
I’ve been in Athens for a few days, on holiday, not having visited city or indeed the country before now. One curious event I wasn’t expecting was finding out that the National Theatre of Greece was putting on William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. Timon in Athens? I could not say no. Timon of Athens isRead More
What are we to do with ruins? Visiting Athens, as I have been doing, you see a city defined by its ruined past. Everywhere, or in the centre at least, a modern city and the surviving traces of its existence two or three millennia ago, each define the other. The ruins of temples, market places,Read More
In my ignorance, I had thought that the tomb of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ was in Arundel. One day I shall be in Arundel, I thought, then I shall pop into whatever church it is and see it. So it came as a bit of surprise to be wandering through Chichester cathedral, forRead More
At the start of the current exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, you are told that 25% of the people on the planet play video games. I am one of the 75%. I do not play video games; indeed, I do not think I have played a video game of any kindRead More
Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face That like the sun did make beholders wink? … A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face. To the cinema, and the next day to the theatre,Read More
Zugzwang is a favourite word of mine. It’s a German term, meaning ‘compulsion to move’, but it was adopted into English in the early 1900s through chess. Zugzwang is a position on the chess board where you are still in the game, with a number of moves available to you, every one of which loses.Read More
For many years my name was unusual; I thought, perhaps, unique. There were few people called Luke when I was growing up (things started to change following the release of Star Wars in 1977). The surname McKernan was a rarity outside of parts of Northern Ireland. The combination of Luke McKernan, the bringing together ofRead More