Sophie Calle - chance encounters

I would have no problem using opportunistic encounters to make my own art. I think that the element of chance or accident can take an artist on incredible journeys of discovery. Chance encounters with strangers such as Sophie Calle's work "Suite Venitienne", whereby she followed a stranger she had briefly met to Venice and documented his and other's movements, can produce all sorts of unanticipated connections. There is a good reason for making art in this way. The element of chance makes for intriguing and unconscious art that can be dynamic and not laboured. I think to make good work an artist needs to be inspired and to remain engaged and in the creative moment.

Has Calle been deceitful? Well, maybe... In "The Hotel" Calle took a job as a chambermaid and rifled through the belongings of the people staying at the hotel. She closely photographed and documented what she found in meticulous, almost obsessive, detail. Although I admire her approach I can't imagine doing this myself. There are limits and boundaries to what each of us would be prepared to do in the name of art. What I do enjoy in Calle's work is the element of performance involved in the process of making the work. I think performance is an approach that Calle uses to keep herself engaged with her own work. It is a useful tool. At some stage I will be taking my triangle pieces and props to a woodland to set up and photograph as a kind of unknown memorial. There is an element of performance in doing this that may transfer to the photographs or be read into the visual narrative from the accompanying artists statement in the same conceptual manner as Calle's work.