Sophie Calle - Take care of Yourself
I received an email telling me it was over.
I didn’t know how to respond.
It was almost as if it hadn’t been meant for me.
It ended with the words, “Take care of yourself.”
And so I did.
I asked 107 women (including two made from wood and one with feathers),
chosen for their profession or skills, to interpret this letter.
To analyze it, comment on it, dance it, sing it.
Dissect it. Exhaust it. Understand it for me.
Answer for me.
It was a way of taking the time to break up.
A way of taking care of myself.
It was almost as if it hadn’t been meant for me.
It ended with the words, “Take care of yourself.”
And so I did.
I asked 107 women (including two made from wood and one with feathers),
chosen for their profession or skills, to interpret this letter.
To analyze it, comment on it, dance it, sing it.
Dissect it. Exhaust it. Understand it for me.
Answer for me.
It was a way of taking the time to break up.
A way of taking care of myself.
(Sophie Calle on "Take care of Yourself", 2007, from 5centsapound, accessed on 10/7/2017, 21:02)
Calle's work is not so easy to find online in one and complete version: my understanding is that she enriched the work through several exhibitions she participated at. The work is made up not of just photographs, but even text and sound, interviews to the author included.
On the surface we could look at this work as a "multimedia work", so that we could think that the author exploited most of the available media today (even voice and acts of other people) in order to enrich the narrative.
The more, at a first sight, this approach (to let go the authorship control, to incorporate text and narrative in audio/video) could reflect a postmodern approach to narrative.
However when I look to the Youtube Interview (accessed on 10/7/2017, 20:43), Sophie Calle says ".....and this letter, when I read it, I did not understand what was behind the words.....".
She did not know what to answer and do. So she asked for help to friends and ended up in creating a work made, among others, of "answers" by other people.
 |
| (Sophie Calle, "Take care of Yourself", 2007, from 5centsapound, accessed on 10/7/2017, 22:00) |
 |
| (Sophie Calle, "Take care of Yourself", 2007, from 5centsapound, accessed on 10/7/2017, 22:00) |
She did not know what to answer and do. So she asked for help to friends and ended up in creating a work made, among others, of "answers" by other people.
 |
| (Sophie Calle, "Take care of Yourself", 2007, from 5centsapound, accessed on 10/7/2017, 22:00) |
So, by need for help in getting rid of a big and personal problem, she made a work reflecting a real postmodernist approach to narrative.
The work stimulates other women, so that each of them would give their own interpretation using their personal experience.
Sophy Rickett - Objects in the Field
The experience and the work of Sophy Rickett are totally different from the one of Sophie Calle.
Even if both artists start from a personal experience, Sophy Rickett composes a sort of diary of her 2012/2013 work as Associated Artist at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, together with Dr. Roderick Willstrop.
Then it starts a story of new experiences (the three mirror telescope), personal memories (the new glasses, the first use of the telescope, the flight to Asia, the two boys seen from the train....) and the path all the way up to the body of work, that is the printing of the analogue photos from 1990/1991.
 |
| (Sophie Rickett, Objects in the field, from https://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/insidemhs/sophy-rickett-objects-field/ ,accessed on 10/7/2017, 23:00) |
Images are the a naked description of objects (stars) in the field (sky) through the print-out of analogue negatives.
However, even if the subject and meaning of the content are manifest (so that the caption simply states when the observation was made), by the help of the narrative (relay) Rickett creates a link between images and some micro-stories, which, at the end, is the regaining of the authorship previously lost by exposing images.
Nevertheless viewers, looking and loosing themselves in these images, could be stimulated and link/project their own personal stories using each image as a starting point.
