Last Monday I went to see Sally O'Reilly speak at the National Gallery of Modern Art. I enjoyed her book, The Body in Contemporary Art, and was fortunate to get the chance to chat briefly to her afterwards about performance, art and film making. My feeling is that, in video art, as in cinema, performance and film are inseparable - that time based artworks are at their most powerful when they complement, manipulate and enhance a performance, rather than simply being a documentation. I'm not sure she entirely agreed with me. I think she may side with the performance purists who believe the distanciation of video weakens the impact of a performance. Still, it was good to speak to her nevertheless.

The theme that has remained with me from her talk more than any other was her brief digression on clichés. She spoke of them, in Derrida's terms as 'worn coins', as something unavoidable, as central to the constant exchange that is language. I have become conscious recently of the extreme frequency with which people use them in conversations, in newspapers, academic papers, books, and, of course, on the radio and TV. I resolved to speak, write, communicate without their aid. And found myself seized by a kind of paralysis - unable to speak, inept in emails and unwilling to post in social media: My inner censor struck out so many phrases I was left with nothing left to say...