Vulnerability in the art of Sophie Calle and the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

This thesis concentrates on the artwork Double Blind (1992)—a video artwork made collaboratively by Greg Shephard and Sophie Calle—and on Emmanuel Levinas’ second major philosophical book titled Otherwise than Being. Beginning with the ethics of Otherwise than Being this thesis undertakes a study which attempts to understand Levinas’ philosophical ‘reduction’ and how this reduction can be a dynamic for contemporary art. Against Levinas’ ‘suspicions’ of art, this thesis argues that Levinas’ ‘reduction’ can be a way for the artwork to retain a trace of Levinas’ ethics. In Otherwise than Being the ‘reduction’ is an ethical language that accommodates the ethics of ‘the saying’. This thesis defines Levinas ‘reduction’ as the approach made through the giving of vulnerability. For Levinas the tough task of supporting ‘the saying’ is the job for philosophy. This thesis challenges Levinas’ theory of art and argues that art too can be in the approach; that art can retain the trace of ‘the saying’; that art can be an important site for ethics. Double Blind (1992) is offered as an example of an artwork in the approach. Through a close consideration of Double Blind this thesis argues that Sophie Calle’s overall artistic practice is one that speaks in the approach. To emphasise the importance of a Levinas ethics for contemporary art this thesis then considers an approach for art criticism. This approach is defined— in similar way as it is with Calle—as a way that the objective can hold within it the vulnerability of subjectivity: that the objective judgement can be made in art criticism in a way that retains the vulnerability and uncertainty of making a response.