LOVE
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, SOPHIE CALLE, 2007
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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. (Calle, 2007) |
Letters of Love When a boyfriend broke-up with her by email, French artist Sophie Calle asked 107 women to read the letter and to respond to it according to their professional interests. The letter was set to music, performed, re-designed as a crossword, it was analysed by a forensic psychiatrist, edited, photographed, etc. "This work began by a real letter, a break-up letter addressed to me by mail. A letter written in such a way that I didn’t know how to answer, it seems very recent. I asked a girlfriend of mine that was there the day I received it, how she would answer such a letter. It gave me the idea immediately to give that letter to a woman to read because I thought it was specifically a letter from a man to a woman. I chose women by their profession. I decided to give the letter to a woman who was used to interpreting. So they were very obtuse at the beginning but as a writer she could study the style and language of the syntax. Then I started to find the most subtle way of interpretation, like the crossword woman that agreed with the words of the letter, poised at mid point with them etc. […] I realise the problem of the language in such a work. There is a lot of text, and I try to find another kind of way to interpret the language like a dancer, singer, or actress, to at least make it more accessible." (Calle, 2007) I believe Calle turned her break-up letter into a love letter to herself, initiating a wider feminist discussion about romantic love, self-care, and kindness. In I Love To You, the philosopher Luce Irigaray writes: "I love to you means I maintain a relation of indirection to you. I do not subjugate you or consume you. I respect you (as irreducible). I hail you: in you I hail. I praise you: in you I praise. I give you thanks: to you I give thanks for ... I bless you. for ... I speak to you, not just about something; rather I speak to you. I tell you, not so much this or that, but rather I tell to you." (1990, 107) Keeping in mind, Calle’s artwork, and Irigaray’s essay, (see below), have you ever received or sent a love letter? Did it please or displease you? How did it change the way you perceived yourself, or the person who wrote it? How did it change the way you viewed love? For your assignment write a 500 word love letter. It can be to a partner, a lover, a friend, or to a younger or older version of yourself.
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