Sophie Calle, Appointment with Sigmund Freud

 I found this book called Appointment with Sigmund Freud by Sophie Calle. She was invited to do an exhibit at Freud's house in 1999. Calle placed some of her personal belongings in different rooms of the house with little written stories next to them on cards. Each object she chose to display correlated to a memory of hers, which is written on the card. As a book, reading from the first to the last story and looking at the images of Calle's things, Freud's things and the interior of the house, I wondered if there was a narrative development from the start to end of the book. But I realize that that is not an important factor of this collection of stories.

  Calle's way of writing makes you want to know more. I think it's funny that she's sharing personal information that most people would never share about themselves, therefore we as voyeurs and humans wanting to relate to others are lucky to get this glimpse into her life, but because she has opened the door, we want to know more. She leaves out information, creating intrigue. For example, in her story paired with The Dutch Portrait on Freud's wall she recounts that she found a letter, and "The letter was signed be a friend of my mother. I assumed from this that he was my real father. Whenever he came to visit us, I would sit on his knee, with my eyes deep in his, I would wait for a confession." (page 73) The fact that she mentions there is a question as to who her real father is makes us want to know more about that issue. But the anecdote is specific to Calle. It is her memory. It is written as she remembers it. It is not written to explain to us her past. It seems to be written to herself, as if these are the words that go through her head when she looks at that object that triggers the memory.
  It seems like the stories can serve for Calle as a way to bring deeper awareness to who she is by investigating specific memories. Themes are apparent, especially sexual and romantic relationships. The memories range from when Calle was a child to a teen, to a twenty-something, to what can be assumed as her present age (at the time the story was written).
 A tone develops from the stories. I get a sense of how Calle views things. There is a sense of humor present throughout the whole book.
 Modes of communication comes up as a theme. A few of the stories recall letters--love letters
(p 73) letter signed by friend of mother who may be her real father. she hid this letter behind a painting and read it from time to time

(p 69) letter she stole from her husband that another woman wrote to him.

 Calle has a quirkiness that is revealed in the stories
For example, she wears a wedding dress on her first date with a certain man
(p 79)

(p 83) Calle's bathrobe slung over one of Frued's chairs relates to her first lover who left the robe with her when she was 18. She recalls that with this man she requested that he never show her his naked front side. Well this seems odd doesn't it? On second thought, don't we all have preferences and tendencies that may be viewed as "odd"? If we all shared our stories of oddities then we wouldn't actually be odd.

(p 87) Paired with one of Freud's belongings, an Egyptian mummy mask with glass and obsidian eyes, Calle says "No matter how hard I try, I never remember the color of a man's eyes or the shape and size of his sex. But I decided that a wife should know these things. So I made an effort to fight this amnesia. I now know he has green eyes." Another peculiarity about Calle. You can't remember the color of your husband's eyes? What does this say about Calle? What's more is what it says about the person reading it, thinking about what it means.

I have a desire, or compulsion, to find a common thread in all of these stories. They are not so disparate, but how do I relate a story about stealing shoes when she was 11 to not being able to remember her husband's eye color? The common thread is Calle. The stories are all hers. They are all experiences she had and remembered. We all have experiences that we forget, so remembering something, even though it might be mundane, is significant.

 This project, the Appointment, makes me wonder, what if other people did this? What would their exhibit look like? I know you know this, and it's been said a thousand times, but, we all have a different story. And every day we engage with and are oblivious to an infinite amount of things to perceive: coming from our environment, our memory, people we interact with, etc. Calle decided to hold onto a few objects from her life that are now imbued with stories.
 What's fascinating to me is a broad, sort of generalizing idea, which is the infiniteness of life. I could write a few words, or a long story for many objects that I own. I could even go outside and go on a walk and collect things along the way and write down what those things remind me of. The memory is such a fascinating thing. Without it I guess we'd be jellyfish.

The images in this post are from the book Appointment with Sigmund Freud (2004 by Thames and Hudson)