Sophie Calle and Paul Auster

Fiction often being influenced by reality the first artists I'll be discussing are Sophie Calle and Paul Auster a pair who allowed fiction to influence reality. Throughout their collaborative relationship Sophie Calle and Paul Auster merged the life of a fictional character called Maria with the life of artist Sophie Calle, bringing them together in an intangible relationship. Double Game (1999) a book published in nineteen ninety-nine moves through the eight projects that the pair work on over a twelve year period, the book acting as a mini retrospective demonstrates the lengths that both artists go to bring the two women fictional or not closer together in their lives. Auster, a poet, novelist and filmmaker is known for combining fictional narratives with real-time contexts, Leviathan (1992), published in nineteen ninety-two follows the story of Benjamin Sachs who meets  an artist known as Maria Turner.

Maria Turner being the character that Calle attempts to become. Double Game (1999) begins with pages 60 to 67 from Leviathan (1999) scribbled over the printed text in red pen we see adjustments and notes that Calle has made to her own copy of the book. We see her first engagement with the character in an organic and familiar way, and getting to know

her, finding similarities between themselves. Information given about Maria Calle alters to match her own story "She had grown up in Holyoke, Massachusetts, the only child of parents who divorced when she was six." Calle in red pen crossed out 'Holyoke, Massachusetts' and replaced it with Paris scribbled above and then crossed out 'Six' and changed it to '3' written above. Moving into the more performative side of the project we see Calle's first task as Maria; Chromatic eating where both Sophie and Maria were restricted by the author to only eat foods of a single colour for any given day. The week of December 8 to 14, 1997 Calle started with only eating orange coloured foods followed by Red, White, Green, Pink and then ended the week with setting a six place dinner dedicated to all of the colours she had eaten throughout the week. Presented as seven images across seven pages with lists of objects that feature in the photographs under the images. The ritualistic quality of the place settings and the sickly combination of foods makes the ordinary objects feel unfamiliar, displacing the purpose of food and making the colour the sole importance of the task. This being a task that we as the audience too could apply to their lives to gain new understandings of objects or ideas, if we considered the advantage of seeing an object with a sole purpose and displacing this purpose, and then replacing it with another. Applying this idea to fiction - its collective understanding is that it serves to tell a story, which we understand has been invented - but if we ignore its function and understanding and then replace it with   the collective understanding of reality.I think what is interesting about this relationship is that Calle is being creatively instructed by Auster, although through a fictional character she is still following the narrative that Auster creates thus allowing him to have creative control. As an artist I think that's brave of Calle. Considering how Auster's practice would have been influenced by having the knowledge that it would be physically created/ enacted we can apply the ideas I discussed earlier, displacing collective understanding1 Giving him this control forces him to adapt his own literary thinking, it displaces the function of fiction giving the narrative an all new purpose, the fictive writing is no longer to entertain its to instruct  - knowing that his writing would be physically re-enacted that they would be materialised  to work in conjunction with Calles physical re-creation – his craft quite literally coming alive. How could playing out or partaking in fiction further

influence our understanding of reality is something that I think both Calle is proposing to the audience, how can being someone else or living like someone else positively effect our understanding of our own identity and understanding of the world around us.