Relational Aesthetics/ Sophie Calle

I found Nicolas Bourriaud’s ‘Relational Aesthetics’ to be really appealing.
I really liked section titled Conviviality and encounters, and found it to be quite interesting.
I particularly liked some of the examples that he gave, especially Sophie Calle and her works which he describes as a "biographical experience which leads to "collaborate" with the people she meets"

I viewed Calle's work, The Hotel Room 47, 28, 29 and 44, 1981 in the Tate Modern in London a couple of years ago and until now after reading 'Relational Aesthetics' i had never remembered the artist's name, only the work which i found to be so unbelievably intriguing and interesting.
In these works Calle takes photographs of people's belongings that she rummages through in hotel rooms, whilst being a chambermaid for a couple of months. I found the space she creates for the audience interesting as i felt in viewing these works as if i was looking at something i should not be looking at. Almost awkwardness. It is a strange feeling having a glimpse into a particular part of somebody's life especially when they are a stranger to you and you have not met them.
I find it so intersting how Calle is in a way involving the public/society although they may not necessarily know they are participating in her work, or know they are being documented.It is so fascinating how she collaborates snapshots of strangers belongings, creating them to become part of her own memory and even the accompaniment of a text alongside these photographs to her own story of these strangers lives.
After reading this particular part of Bourriaud's "Relational Aesthetics" and his MANY given examples of artsits and their works, i would say that these works could be considered as artist's documentation of society.
“And when from the invention of the atelier through the interchanges that conjured Cubism to the collectives of today, was art not to some degree a collaborative sport?” (“Tate Modern: London”, Herbert Martin no.299, September 2006, p. 26)


Just a note also, Sophie Calle has some really interesting books at the SCA library, there are quite a few on her and also books she has created with her work & a collaboration of text telling her own biographical story.