The Museum of London worked poems into its displays. Two I particularly enjoyed. One argued that the present will be viewed as the past, with an emphasis on the human form. We act cognizant of the eyes from a distant future. This adds a simultaneity to time; we gaze at the past, and know that the future gazes at us.
Behavior altered by awareness of a judging future became especially evident while I sipped a coffee outside the Westminster Abbey, people watching massive crowds from all over the world. What struck me was how odd a pose for a photograph looks. The artificial gestures, held longer than is natural, do not belong in the present where they exist.
The monuments, too, act for the future. Statues adorn the graves of the abbey’s wealthiest, some in author-photo poses and profound gazes. Most, however, were in resting positions with hands in the Western mudra: clasped in prayer. Statues instantiate personhood, and while most in the abbey are the likeness of who lay below, some were of saints and angels. John and I wondered about a trend. Who do we make statues of? How does the subject matter change? In antiquity, they were idols of deities. Then efforts became busts of political figures. Walking along the streets of London, most statues are of military leaders erected after the great wars. Current work for sculptors seems to be immortalizing sports heroes in halls of fame.