Sat Feb 24, 2007 — by Elayne Riggs

Performance art comics?

Is it worth your £1.99?

Metronome  is described as "a 64-page graphic novel by Véronique Tanaka: a 'silent,' erotically-charged visual poem, an experimental non-linear story using a palette of iconic ligne clair images. Symbolism, visual puns and trompe l'oeil conspire in a visual mantra that could be described as 'existential manga' if it wasn't for the fact that there is a very human and elegantly-structured tale providing a solid foundation to the cutting-edge storytelling." 

The graphic novel will be published next year by NBM, but it's available to view as a 17-minute animated (actually, still-shots) movie on this site if you fork over the equivalent of about four bucks.  I confess I didn't last more than a minute and a half, two minutes tops.  Not only did I see no storytelling, but it seemed to have all the earmarks of a pretentious performance art piece worthy of the likes of a young Yoko Ono. 

If Grapefruit were a graphic novel-imagined-as-an-animated movie, it might look something like this.  Only without the grapefruit, and with a lava lamp, a fly, a piano, and a metronome, among other things.

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