Phantasmal Bodies and Objectified Spaces: Self-Reflection in Woodman and Calle

The work of Francesca Woodman is ’self-representation[al]’ in that her body is the subject of much of her work. The affect of her photographs, however, stems from the transitionary, almost phantasmal quality which appears from the blurring or obscuring of that body. Her corporeal form functions not as an object of ‘self-assertion’ but as a vessel of existentialism, or as a medium to translate existential questions concerning identity to a visual medium. Comparatively, in the work of Sophie Calle, whilst the artist is visually absent from the works, they are still ‘self-representation[al],’ and arguably more so than Woodman’s. Through the text that accompanies the images, each photograph is tarnished by her subjectivity. Self- representation, for both Woodman and Calle, transcends the confinement of bodily form, serving as a medium with which to artistically present the interiority of the artist’s psychological space.

In a letter to a friend, Woodman suggests that the self-representation in her work mostly occurred as a ‘matter of convenience’, as it is a subject that is ‘always available.’ Yet, whilst observing her work it seems that this notion of convenience is overstated by Woodman – her ephemeral self-representation extending past her work into her actual life. Woodman’s work, Peggy Phelan suggests, is a ‘type of theatre for the oscillating tension between the desire to live and the desire to die.’ Her premature death at the age of twenty-two, after jumping from her apartment building window, along with her comment in another letter that she would ‘rather die young, leaving various accomplishments’ presents this tension within the artists real life. In this way, Woodman’s self-representation reflects this dichotomy – this desire to die whilst living before the act of dying had taken place. One way in which this oscillation is staged is through the subversion of portraiture tradition – in which a subject will typically remain still whilst Woodman’s portraits capture movement, there is a dismissal of stillness in her self-representation. In Untitled, Boulder, Colorado (1972-75) Woodman's body traverses a headstone, visually dividing her into two halves. The upper part of her body, comprising the head, shoulders, and torso, appears in front of the gravestone, while the lower portion remains behind. The utilization of long exposure in the photograph blurs her figure, creating an otherworldly presence, while the static elements maintain a solid appearance, where the composition conveys a sense of an apparition emerging from the scene. The inscription on the stone reads ‘to die’ and in moving through its gaping pore it seems as though Woodman wishes to traverse this boundary, the gravestone her chosen location to ‘stage’ this self-representative oscillation that Phelan locates.

Although it is clear Woodman places herself in her images, there is an inability to visually capture the body before it is obscured. It fades into the wallpaper in From Space (1976), her thin pale arms become enveloped with bark in Untitled (1980) to become almost indistinguishable from the thin Himalayan birch trees in the background. Helaine Posner suggests that Woodman fades into her backgrounds ‘in a manner that conveys an unsettling disturbance of physical and psychological boundaries, a fear of the absorption of her ego within the ominous, abandoned setting.’ Again, Woodman pens these sensibilities in letters within her real life, ‘Am I in the picture?’ she questions, ‘Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing in the corner?’ She would rather ‘do away with [herself]’ and ‘die young’, leaving behind these small self-reflective ‘artifacts’ of herself in her work, than continue to have to represent herself in real life. Artistic Self- representation, for Woodman, thus serves as the ‘artefact’ she speaks of, a remanence of her ephemeral self-perception and capturing her in the transitionary state between being ‘in’ the picture and ‘getting out of it.’ In jumping out the window, she emancipates herself from fading into the wallpaper – transcends both ‘physical’ and ‘psychological boundaries’, and decidedly crosses the threshold between life and death that her work is so affective of.

In Sophie Calle’s The Hotel (1981) it is through the artists narrative construction and voyeuristic lens that the artist represents herself. Through this guise, inanimate objects take on their own delineate identities – unlike the ghostly body of Woodman which the viewer attempts to cognitively grasp into a coherent form, Calle didactically informs the viewer as how to interpret each image. Her self-representation is therefore far more direct than Woodman’s, even though we are unable to see her. During the project, Calle worked as a chambermaid for three weeks in a hotel in Venice. In this time, she would document through photographs and writing, the objects of those inhabiting the room – stains on the sheets, towels on the floor etc in images divided by room number. The items in which she finds interest and the accompanying logbook to the project insert and establish her omniscient presence within the work. Footwear for example is often seen to have a particularly affective response – ‘Now I make a bee-line for what appeals to me.’ In Room 47, of the nine grey scale photographs, the central image is of three pairs of shoes, arranged in an unorganized line, the first sentence of her writing directs the viewer to this image ‘The first thing I notice are four pairs of slippers: two pairs for adults, two for children.’ The angle of the photographs is moreover consistent – a high angle shot, as though the view of the camera lens were in conjunction with Calle’s eyeline. Whilst Michael Sheringham suggests that ‘the black and white photographs accompanying the sequence of entries allude to the discourse of photographic reportage’ and alludes to a similarity with the photographer Weegee, the objectification of the glasses, shoes, and toothbrushes in the photos are still framed by Calle’s gaze. The hard-boiled crime scene style does not distract the viewer from the fact that the project is inherently a subjective one, and we can only witness it through Calle’s subjectivity. This is how, despite the subversion of a typical ‘portrait’, The Hotel is a self-reflection of the artist.

Woodman’s work reveals an ongoing oscillation between life and death, capturing the artist in a constant state of becoming and vanishing. In stark contrast, Calle’s work is characterized by her omnipresent subjectivity, despite her physical absence from the images. Projects like "The Hotel" transform mundane objects and spaces into narrative vessels, filled with the artist’s introspective musings and voyeuristic tendencies. Calle’s detailed logs and high-angle shots invite viewers into her perceptual world, making her selfrepresentation explicit through the act of observing and documenting others’ lives.

Both artists transcend traditional notions of portraiture, using their respective mediums to present the interiority of their psychological spaces. Woodman’s blurred corporeality and Calle’s object-focused storytelling converge in their ability to articulate complex existential themes, reflecting their deep-seated need to understand and represent their identities.