John Gardiner

Metopes John Gardiner

Spacetime is a three-dimensional toolbox, or, existential toybox, employed by the dramatis personae in Metopes to analogically gather understanding of the Incarnational Palimpsest: Earth being a Theatre, itself a thought-experiment, all humanity being on-stage here unfolding a specific Destiny, so much however pre-determined by that palimpsest. Beginning with WHAAM! (1968 - 1970), followed in succession by, Exiles (1971 - 1973), Siren (1974 - 1976), Trash (1977 - 1979), and Friezes (1980 - 1982), Metopes continues the journey of the dramatis personae through 1983 - 1985, each year a cloud of probabilities determined by the palimpsests of the previous years. Essentially, Time's palimpsest cannot be wholly erased, but is successively over-written, allied to Quantum Physics' imponderable Truth, that past-present-future are simultaneous, a phenomenon resistant to humanity's three-dimensional perception this cannot be. Highly stylised on the page, Metopes exhibits the visual image determined by Classical Greek Architects/Sculptors: being a rectangular, decorative frieze bound by spatial triglyphs. Quick-cutting paragraphs on-the-page evoke this, as they do cine-frames, creating a tapestry-effect, a succession of stand-alone metopes in prose, suggestive of the Inner Thinker's view of its embodiments through Time. Time is unstoppable, referred to in Metopes as a long, lonely highway, materialising a startling array of imagery enveloping the dramatis personae.