우연히 파리의 길거리에서 주운 주소록을 주인에게 돌려 주기전에 몰래 복사한 아티스트 소피 칼(SOPHIE CALLE)은 주소
록에서 기재된 사람들과 차례로 접촉하며 주인에 대해 알아보는 작업을 시작했다. 그리고 이 과정을 기록해 일간지
LIBÉRATION에 1983년 8월 2일부터 9월 4일까지의 과정들을 사진과 글로 연재했는데, 이 사실을 알게된 주인의 요청에
따라 그가 죽기 전에 다시 발표하지않기로 합의했다. 서로 다른 관계의 사람들이 제공한 다양한 정보의 조합은 허술하지만 동
시에 이상하리 만큼 친밀한 초상을 그려낸다. 첫 영문 번역본으로 실제 주소록과 크기, 재질, 색상 모두를그대로 재현했다.
In the early nineteen-eighties, the French artist Sophie Calle, who is known for projects that involve
immersing herself in the lives of strangers or allowing strangers a view of her own life, found an address
book on the street in Paris. Before mailing it back to its owner a filmmaker called Pierre D. she photocopied
the contents and then proceeded to call each person listed in it to ask questions about him. “I will try to
discover who he is without ever meeting him, and I will try to produce a portrait of him over an undetermined
length of time that will depend on the willingness of his friends to talk about him and on the turns taken by
the events,” she wrote. She turned her encounters into short pieces, which were published almost daily over
the course of a month in the newspaper Libération. When Pierre D. discovered what Calle was doing, he
threatened to sue her for invasion of privacy, and she agreed not to re-publish the work until after his death.
Siglio Press has just brought out the project—consisting of Calle’s writings and accompanying photographs
as a book, giving readers the chance to peer, along with Calle, into the touchingly elusive figure at the center
of her investigations.