At Play in the Archive: Reading Sophie Calle's Double Game as Autofictional Remains by Anna ...

239 Pages·2015·16.62 MB·English

At Play in the Archive:
Reading Sophie Calle’s
Double Game as Autofictional Remains

by
Anna Khimasia

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral
Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

Doctor Of Philosophy
in
Cultural Mediations

Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario

© 2015
Anna Khimasia
ABSTRACT

In 1992 author Paul Auster borrowed eight projects from French artist Sophie
Calle for Maria, a fictional character in his novel Leviathan; Auster also included
two projects of his own invention. Calle, in return, enacted and documented
these projects created by Auster and included them, along with her initial
projects, in her book Double Game. Double Game begins with these words:
“Intrigued by this double, I decided to turn Auster’s novel into a game and to
make my own particular mix of reality and fiction.”1
Calle’s autofictional projects seemingly describe events in her life: a job
as a chambermaid, a job as a striptease artist, a day spent being followed by a
detective. Calle’s use of autofiction, a self-conscious play between
autobiography and the novel, emphasizes the impossibility of a coherent and
unified subject. I argue that Calle’s book plays with structures and forms usually
associated with truth telling (autobiography, archives, photography, the report,
the diary) by constructing evidence that relies on these structures for legitimacy,
only to expose gaps, inconsistencies, and fictions as a space for play and
critique.
The French version of Double Game, a series of seven separate books,
has the title Doubles-jeux. Jeu in French is understood to mean both game and
play, while also a homonym for ‘I’ [je]. Doubles-jeux is a double-cross—to
deceive and betray, in the sense of a red herring. Thus the title, Double Game,

1 Sophie Calle with the participation of Paul Auster, Double Game (Paris: Violette Editions,
1999), 1.
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already speaks to Calle’s autofictional accounts in which the narrating “I” is
always unreliable and the events described always undecideable.
My dissertation focuses on the contingency of Calle’s documents by
highlighting the spaces between what is said to have happened, what we are
shown, and what may have taken place. Aligning Calle’s work with performance,
and recent discussions about performance documentation, enables a more
focused interrogation of the relationship between the event and its
representation. My dissertation argues that as a collection of autofictional traces,
Double Game performs the autofictional subject at play in the archive.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express a sincere thank you to all those who have supported me
in the process of completing this thesis. First and foremost I would like to thank
my supervisors Professor Chris Faulkner and Professor Ming Tiampo whose
guidance enabled me to complete this work. I would also like to express my
appreciation to my readers Professor Carol Payne and Professor Jodie Medd for
their support and generosity. Thank you to my outside readers, Professor Jayne
Wark and Professor Laura Horak, for their insightful comments and questions.
I would also like to thank the Institute for Comparative Studies in
Literature, Art and Culture (ICSLAC) at Carleton University where I completed
my degree, particularly its Director Mitchell Frank who showed me unwavering
support and encouragement. Thanks also to Dawn Schmidt at ICSLAC who
guided me through the bureaucracy of being in school. My studies would not
have been possible without the generous support of grants and scholarships. I
thank Carleton University, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, S. F. Wise Graduate
Bursary and the David and Rachel Epstein Foundation Scholarship. I also thank
the Art History Department at Carleton who employed me throughout my PhD.
There are so many people without whom this journey would not have
been possible. I thank my classmates and friends Thom Everrett, Kyle Devine
and Pamela Barber who stimulated my intellectual growth and taught me all
about Bruno Latour! I feel lucky to have had the support from so many friends. I
thank Sandra Dyck, Anne De Stecher, Kate Barry, Bianca Briciu, Emma Lind,
Bethany Gibson, Courtney Holmes, Sue Lofthouse, and Melissa Thompson who
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listened to me, offered advice, read through my work, and helped when things
got too hectic or unruly. A massive thanks also to those friends who provided
well-needed craziness in times of stasis: Action Jackson and Coleman, Missy
and Peter, Scottie and France, Erik and Tania, Cork and Nyah, Juju, Bud and
Natalie, Scott and Jas, So and Marcus, Bethany and Glenn, and SD and PC! A
professor once told me that at the end of this process I would not have any
friends remaining, so I feel especially lucky to have such close, supportive and
fun friends! I thank my mum, Therese Khimasia who always found time to listen
to me and provided words of encouragement throughout this process and my
brothers, Dan and Dave, who found the levity in it all. To Pauline, Don and
Cameron, I really could not have done this without you. I thank you from the
bottom of my heart. Finally I thank my family, my daughters Maeve and Eva,
and my partner Sean Lynch, whose patience, love, and humour enabled me to
complete this dissertation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………..ii
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….iv
Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………vi
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….viii

INTRODUCTION: LIKE IN A THESIS .................................................................. 1
Double Game .................................................................................................... 1
Autofiction ......................................................................................................... 6
Autofiction and Theory (poststructuralism) ..................................................... 10
Roland Barthes ............................................................................................... 12
Paul Auster ..................................................................................................... 15
Autofiction and Performance Archive (the event and its traces) ..................... 16
Literature Review ............................................................................................ 19
Chapter Outline ............................................................................................... 26
CHAPTER ONE: LIKE A CHARACTER OUT OF A NOVEL .............................. 29
Calle’s Annotated Pages of Auster’s Leviathan .............................................. 30
The Desire for Origin ....................................................................................... 39
The Chromatic Diet ......................................................................................... 42
As Artifice ........................................................................................................ 52
Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 53
CHAPTER TWO: LIKE IN A PHOTOGRAPH ..................................................... 54
The Photograph and The Performance .......................................................... 63
Suite vénitienne .............................................................................................. 67
The Double ..................................................................................................... 75
Performative Realism ..................................................................................... 81
The Detective .................................................................................................. 87
Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 96
CHAPTER THREE: LIKE IN AN ARCHIVE ........................................................ 98
The Birthday Ceremony .................................................................................. 98
Days Under The Sign of B, C and W ............................................................ 110
Archival Absence .......................................................................................... 117
The Mystery Guest ....................................................................................... 118
The Hotel ...................................................................................................... 123
Archives and Archeology .............................................................................. 131
The Address Book ........................................................................................ 133
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 137
CHAPTER FOUR: LIKE THE FEMALE SUBJECT .......................................... 138
The Striptease .............................................................................................. 138
Roland Barthes and “Striptease” .................................................................. 146
As Masquerade ............................................................................................. 149
As Failure ...................................................................................................... 151
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Proximity and Distance ................................................................................. 152
As Fetish ....................................................................................................... 153
As Vocation ................................................................................................... 154
As Violence ................................................................................................... 155
Sophie Calle is Suspect ................................................................................ 162
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 164
CHAPTER FIVE: CONSTRUCTING AN ARCHIVE ......................................... 166
Gotham Handbook ........................................................................................ 166
The Phone Booth .......................................................................................... 170
New York City/Gotham City .......................................................................... 174
Sexual Difference ......................................................................................... 176
As Information ............................................................................................... 179
The List/Archive ............................................................................................ 182
Performative Photography ............................................................................ 184
Temporal Unfolding ...................................................................................... 187
Archiving the Ordinary .................................................................................. 193
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 199
CONCLUSION: AS ARCHIVAL ABSENCE ...................................................... 200
The Absence of Presence ............................................................................ 200
As Archive ..................................................................................................... 205
The Archive, Gender, and Narrative ............................................................. 206
Sophie Calle as Archival Absence? .............................................................. 208
Textuality....................................................................................................... 209
Archive as Trope for Interpretation ............................................................... 210

Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 212

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Sophie Calle, Double Game, Cover, 1999…………………..…………..3.

Figure 2. Sophie Calle, Double Game, Copyright Page, 1999……………………5.

Figure 3. Paul Auster, Leviathan, Copyright Page, 1992.……………….………..5.

Figure 4. Sophie Calle, annotated pages 64 and 65 from Paul Auster’s
Leviathan, 1999………………………………………………………………………31.

Figure 5. Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, 1977…..……...34.

Figure 6. Sophie Calle, Days Under the Sign of B, C and W, 1998..…………..36.

Figure 7. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997…………….…………………44.

Figure 8. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997…………….…………………44.

Figure 9. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997…………….…………………45.

Figure 10. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997.………….………………….45.

Figure 11. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997……………………………...46.

Figure 12. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997………….…………………..46.

Figure 13. Sophie Calle, The Chromatic Diet, 1997.………….………………….49.

Figure 14. Sophie Calle, Suite vénitienne, 1981……………...…………………..61.

Figure 15. Sophie Calle, The Detective, 1981……………….……………………62.

Figure 16. Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll, 1975……………………….….65.

Figure 17. VALIE EXPORT, Action Pants/Genital Panic, 1969………………....65.

Figure 18. Vito Acconci, Following Project, 1969…………………………………69.

Figure 19. Sophie Calle, Suite vénitienne, 1981………………………………….74.

Figure 20. Sophie Calle, Paris Shadows, Excerpts from Calle’s Diaries, 1978-
1979……………………………………………………………………………………74.

Figure 21. Sophie Calle, Detail, Suite vénitienne, and Detail, Paris Shadows..75.
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Figure 22. Hayley Newman, Crying Glasses: An Aid to Melancholia, 1995…...85.

Figure 23. Sophie Calle, The Detective, 1981…………………………………….89.

Figure 24. Sophie Calle, The Detective, 1981…………………………………….90.

Figure 25. Sophie Calle, The Detective, 1981…………………………………….91.

Figure 26. Sophie Calle, The Detective, 1981…………………………………….95.

Figure 27. Sophie Calle, The Birthday Ceremony, 1980-1993……………….....99.

Figure 28. Sophie Calle, The Birthday Ceremony, 1980-1993………………...104.

Figure 29. Sophie Calle, The Birthday Ceremony, 1980-1993………………...104.

Figure 30. Sophie Calle, Days Under the Sign of B, C and W, 1998…………114.

Figure 31. Sophie Calle, Days Under the Sign of B, C and W, 1998…………115.

Figure 32. Sophie Calle, Des journées entières sous le signe du B, du C, du W,
1998…………………………………………………………………………………..117.

Figure 33. Sophie Calle, The Hotel, 1981………………………………………..124.

Figure 34. Sophie Calle, The Hotel, 1981………………………………………..126.

Figure 35. Sophie Calle, The Hotel, 1981………………………………………..131.

Figure 36. Sophie Calle, The Hotel, 1981………………………………………..131.

Figure 37. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….140.

Figure 38. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….140.

Figure 39. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….141.

Figure 40. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….142.

Figure 41. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….147.

Figure 42. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….148.

Figure 43. Sophie Calle, La lame de rasoir, Des histoires vraies, 1994……...157.

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Figure 44. Pierre Baudry, Letter to the Editor, Libération………………………159.

Figure 45. Sophie Calle, The Striptease, 1979………………………………….161.

Figure 46. Paul Auster, Letter to Sophie Calle, 1994…………………………..167.

Figure 47. Paul Auster, Personal Instructions for S.C. on How to Improve Life in
New York City (Because she asked…)…………………………………………..168.

Figure 48. Sophie Calle, Gotham Handbook, 1994……………………………..175.

Figure 49. Sophie Calle, Gotham Handbook, 1994……………………………..178.

Figure 50. Sophie Calle, Les dormeurs, 1979…………………………………...189.

Figure 51. Sophie Calle, Gotham Handbook, 1994……………………………..191.

Figure 52. Sophie Calle, Gotham Handbook, 1994……………………………..192.

Figure 53. Sophie Calle, Gotham Handbook, 1994……………………………..196.

Figure 54. Sophie Calle, The Wardrobe, 1985-1992……………………………203.

Figure 55. Sophie Calle, The Wardrobe, 1985-1992……………………………203.

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