UNFINISHED

by
Sophie Calle and Fabio Balducci

1988
How it all started

An American bank invited me to do a project.

Their automatic tellers were equipped with video cameras. 

The bank's private detective gave me seven stills from their recordings.

A series of three photos showed a woman at the wheel of her car:
She stops in front of a machine and presents a check.
Two minutes, eighteen seconds later: she looks anxious.
One minute twenty-eight seconds go by. The transaction is accepted, her face lights up. It was a stolen check with a forged signature.
Second series of four images.
August 26, 1983. Twenty-one-fifty-four-O-five. A woman takes out some money.
Twenty-one-fifty-four-O-nine. A man appears on the screen. 
Twenty-one-fifty-four-twenty. The man knocks the woman unconscious.
Twenty-one-fifty-eight-O-seven. A bare-chested associate appears in front of the lens.

It's like the camera is making a confession: it won't help you; it's only there to protect the money.
I wanted to see more. I watched the surveillance tapes. The hidden cameras that are trained on clients all night and all day show people who think they are one-on-one with their money.
I didn't know what to do with these images. They were saying something, but what? Were they about surveillance, about money, about solitude? I needed time to think about it.

1990 / 1991
I come back

I began by photographing the bags of money. Not very convincing.

I needed an idea to go with those faces. They were still with me.

I asked employees how much money they actually touched every day, and to give me a chain of ten associations for the word. An example: money – silverware – apartment – family – work – holidays – laughter – love – ephemeral – death. Which boiled down to: money – death.

I put the corresponding sum and words over each image. I photographed these hands that touched one hundred thousand or four million dollars of money-power, money-world, money-self, money-paradise, money-love. Yes, but what next?
Of course there was the beauty of the open hands, the poetry of certain associations. Simple. Too simple?

This result was published in the local paper with the title, The hands that touch the money, an unfinished project by Sophie Calle. Unfinished. That's how it all started. The bad luck. I should have known.

The bank detective was eager to help. He told me about another of his activities: supermarket security.
How did this relate to the bank images? Was the answer in those trapped gazes; those pathetic objects on chairs; those lists of petty crimes?
-  subject was seen hiding four balls of wool in pants pocket. Exited store making no attempt to pay. Total loss: one dollar eight.
- subject was seen taking sneakers.
- subject was seen taking screwdrivers and pliers.
- The subject was seen… was seen. I liked the style. But why link those faces to those of the bank's clients? I went no further.

A security agent gave me some documents from the police station. The cops trained by firing at mugshots of petty criminals. I tried to find out what crimes they had committed. I wanted to know if one of them had really been shot. If the image of his face pierced by a bullet had caught up with him. Nothing. Only modest sentences. All alive. They had dodged the shots.

Try something else. I researched people who died for money. Fell for money. Maybe it was the sad faces of the bank's clients that gave me the idea. Maybe my own morbidity. I thought of a monument to those who died on the field of money. But I got no further.

Time was moving on. Still nothing. I declined the bank's offer. I still felt that these images were not enough. They needed text. My trademark: image and text. If I showed found documents, without adding my own experience, I would be betraying my own style. 

Still, I did manage to steal three surveillance tapes. You never know.

1991 / 1992
Failed exhibitions?

My gallerist, Chantal Crousel, saw things differently. She loved these mute images. They were shown in the exhibition Vanitas.
After that came Les Couleurs de l'Argent, at the Postal Museum in Paris, and Doubletake at the Hayward Gallery in London. Not great. 

1994
Help!

I had come to a dead end. I asked Jean Baudrillard to write captions for the photos. He gave me four pages. He compared the machine to a polling booth, a urinal, a confessional. Now I had a text written by someone else and images taken by a machine. Where was I in all this? I needed to act.

1995
I investigate

I interviewed clients at the telling machines:
What do you think of this machine? What were you thinking of? How much have you taken? What are you going to do with it? Do you like to touch it or do you prefer to look? Does it bring happiness? What kind of sum can bring happiness? Do you have a lot? How much is a lot? How much more do you need?
They were getting out twenty to one hundred dollars. Money made some people happy, others not. So what?

-	Can I ask you a question? Speak to me of money
-	 About money? What can I say? Speak about money ? There's never enough. That's the only question – the only answer  I can give. Money doesn't  make you happy, but it helps. The more you have, the happier you are, so they say.

-	How much more do you need ?
-	I don't. I'm fine.

-   There’s never enough, except for you?
-    I’m not complaining. Some might. But I’m ok, so I’m 
	not complaining. Have a nice day!

-	Speak to me of money.
-	Right now, I don't have any. So I'd rather not.
-	Really?
-	Well no, none. That's why I'm going to the bank.

-	Can I ask you a question ? Speak to me of money.
-	What is it?
-	Money? Hmm, I don't know. 

-	Speak to me of money…
-	Why money?
-	Why not?

-	Speak to me of money..
-	No!
-	No? Too bad…
-    Too bad. Bye!

I had to try again. Find something else.

1996
I sum up

I concentrated my research in one single question: "Could you tell me how much you earn?"
Nothing. I don't know exactly. It depends. Too little, not much, Enough. Not enough, just enough. I earn good money but I have kids, an apartment, taxes. That leaves me just a quarter. Mind your own business!
And lots of ... 

dialogue 

-	Sir, tell me how much you earn?
-	No!
-	How much?
….
-	How much do you earn?
-	A billion per month.
-	How much do you earn?
-	What? No!
-	Sir, can you tell me how much you earn?
-	Sure, and what else?
-	How much do you earn?
-	You're kidding! 
-	That’s a good one!
-	Can you tell me how much you earn?
-	No, no…
-	Sorry?
-	Can you tell me how much you earn?
-	Uh, no! No thanks!
-	Can you tell me what you earn?
-	No!

I'd got myself into a real mess. Nothing worked. Inadequate. Boring. Too confused. Nearly time to go on vacation. I was in love, or just sick of this thing I was dragging around with me.

1997
 Back to square one

Start from the beginning. Go back to the thousands of faces on the screen. Photograph them. To sum up: if each tape records eight days and nights, that makes one hundred eight thousand images per hour, times 24 hours, times 8 days, times 3 tapes. About 62 million, two hundred, eight thousand views. That's an awful lot. And no story. Now I knew why I'd been watching them for nearly ten years. Were they beautiful at least? Or were they useless? 
I imagined an empty room. A single portrait. One face intent on the money.

1998
Secret money

Maybe I should have avoided the subject. Baudrillard compared the wicket to a confessional. So I asked people to sell me their secrets: 20 dollars for a simple story, 200 for a real confession.
I got two fine secrets. For free. 
Except that they could stand alone. I really wasn't getting anywhere. Either the ideas were bad, not worthy of the images, or my projects had a life of their own.

1998
Secret money

From secrets I went to safes. Find a couple and get each person to tell me a secret. Install two safes in their home and lock up their secrets. Keep the keys. They will have to live together with each other's secrets. 

This has nothing to do with the bank photos. I've ventured too far. Keep this for later. Just need to find a couple of victims. I'm lost.

I thought of turning myself into a CCTV, watching a place that wasn't guarded. I chose to take up position outside my house. To film the entrance to my building.
After ten minutes I gave up.

I decided to create a perfume. A perfume called "The Smell of Money." I went to see a perfumer.

dialogue 

-	What does money smell like?
-	I started with an impression of metal, an impression of paper, of ink, and also of dampness, of something unclean.
-	Does money smell good?
-	I tried to include attraction, something sexy, sensual… and also something repulsive. That's what I see.
Attractive and repulsive. Can I have money?
-     Have a smell…

The Smell of Money comprised 30percent Amberlyn, one percent Basmati rice, 10percent Castoreum Absolute, 5percent Dimethyl Hydroquinone, 4 percent Dipropylene Glycol and 50percent Evernyl.

Not bad, but what about the bank? I went back to see the bankers. To hear their money jokes. They didn't know any.

dialogue 

-	That's why money was like a wall. Because if you were trying for humor, then the links between money and humor are slight.

Anyway, I had just been told this joke.
 
dialogue 

      -       Go ahead, go ahead…

-	A little boy asks his Dad, what's the difference between real and virtual.

The father tells him to go and ask his mother and sister if they would sleep with a stranger for money. The child asks his mother: "Would you sleep with someone for one million dollars?" "That's horrible, no!" "And for three million?" "Only if it was really necessary," the mother replied. He asks his sister: "For three million, yes."

-  He goes to his father, who says: "Right, virtually we have $6 million, and in reality we have two whores back home."
	
The banker was amused.

2000
Pretium doloris
,
I tried to find out the price of suffering. A child gets 15,000 dollars in damages if his father or mother dies. 50 percent more if the child is already an orphan. Married and adult, you get 10,000 dollars.

Nowadays, a family gets more when the victim had time to see death coming. How much per minute of terror? Is it better to lose your husband in a crash with American Airlines, or British Airways? Where does a lost leg earn most? In the country or in the city? And what is the first thing you would buy with the insurance money? A car? A house? Plenty to explore there. I went along with it for a while, then I put it off for later.

2001
Money and feelings

After reading an essay on suicide I came back to the monument to the dead.
They say that when the London police fish corpses out of the Thames, they can tell whether the drowned person was heartbroken or bankrupt. Lovers' fingers are cut up by their efforts to cling on to the piers of the bridge. In contrast, the debtors just seem to sink, without a struggle, like blocks of concrete.

While I was at it, I decided to pawn all the objects that were of sentimental value to me. 

dialogue 

-	Number 112 at desk 4! Number 112 at desk 4!

I offered the woman:
The stuffed monkey mentioned by Hervé Guibert in his book To the Friend That Didn't Save My Life.

-	Look, I'm sorry, we don't take that kind of thing, it has no sale value for us. 
What else do you have?

Books with dedications to Sophie Calle by Dennis Hopper, Hervé Guibert, Régis Franc, Jean Baudrillard, Paul Auster …

-	Sorry, we don't take that kind of book.
-	I have some love letters.
-	No, no.
-	Photographs… Cindy Sherman ?
-	Afraid not.

Robert Calle's Roleiflex. Not accepted.
A dress that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. Not accepted.
A miniature by the artist Cindy Sherman, another by Jean-Michel Othoniel. 

-	Afraid not..
-	And the first work by artist Sophie Calle. She has a show this year at the Pompidou Center.
-	No, it really has no sale value for us. You don't have anything else? No jewels?

The woman seemed really sorry. She kept saying, "Jewelry, do you have any jewelry?"
My "failures" column was growing longer and longer.

2002
I am overcome with doubt

Is it because you can do things with money that I am incapable of doing anything about money? I kept looking for the question that would save me. The miracle question. Out of despair, I decided to see a hypnotist.

dialogue 

- Start by getting comfortable in your body.
- Focus on the contact between your body and the chair. Let it get a bit heavier. 
- Let the images come back.
-	And the smells.

What if the images were just banal. Maybe I knew this, unconsciously, right from the start. I let everyone get sick of these surveillance videos. I sat wondering if it was beautiful. Without seeing that time was getting on. That the secrets, the open hands, might be more interesting than these portraits which paralysed me because they seemed so powerful. Since time is money, my idea must have borne fruit: 14 years of cumulative interest. There is still hope. I really must get on top of this thing.

When I came out of my hypnosis, I was relaxed, but no clearer about the money.

2003
Deliverance

That leaves video. A fine artist's video. Don't touch a thing. The original document. Get right up close to these faces. Nothing to add. Years of failure  only to find myself back where I started. If this is the final form, it's even worse than I thought. Call the project Surrender and join the battalion of multimedia installations. Another of those things you have to catch before they break down. But not at the opening, because they aren't working yet. And you, are you going to stand there and watch the whole video? Right to the end? When you don't even have to? Thanks, but no thanks. To think I always avoid videos at exhibitions, muttering that I'll come back. Which I don't. Me, a video artist? After everyone else? That reminds me of my relation to Japan. I loved Japanese food, Japanese novels, but I knew deep down that it wasn't for me. As if I was breaking and entering the culture.

Why not just accept these images as they are, without a story. Just for once. Say nothing. After years of rejecting their silence, that's difficult. Silent photos, SILENT. 

No. I chose to interfere with them. That's the whole point. This is the anatomy of a failure. This fiasco is now part of the program. I am trying to use my setbacks. Defeat is the mother of success said Chairman Mao. So how far can I go with this debacle? I've already talked about my love life in my work, so why not my professional problems? The difference is that the failure of a project doesn't upset me as much. I never thought of using it because I wasn't suffering enough. So that's the deal: either be happy with a man and have nothing to say, or unhappy and make something of it.

Cioran tells the story of a Russian who suffered in silence for eighteen years because he thought his wife was cheating on him. After all that mute agony, he decided to confront her: his suspicions were unfounded. The thought of all those years of torment was too much to bear. He went straight into the bathroom and blew his brains out.

Yesterday Grégoire Bouillier told me money wasn't my thing. Why not just drop it? I keep trying, because I have a problem with these images: I don't know where they come from, I don't want to be drawn in, I am fighting them. And I can't bear the thought of having wasted so much time. Grégoire also asked me to react to the word "money". "I've got it," I answered. He told me that was why I couldn't find anything to say. All I could talk about was lack. So, that was the reason?
I went to my bank manager for advice.

dialogue 

-	The problem is, I’ve spent fifteen years looking for an idea, without success, and I can't let go. I can't accept that I did all that for nothing. That's what motivates me.
-	That's a real money problem. It’s when you invest over 15 years, and won't let go until you get something back on the investment.
-	Dividends?
-	Yes, dividends.  Otherwise it's a failure. That's money!
-	So, my film is the dividend on 15 years of failure?
-	If you make it! In the markets, you’re in trouble if you don't learn to cut your losses. If you’re in a bad position, going the wrong way, you mustn't be stubborn. You have to “cut off an arm” as we say in French.
-	If my film shows my mistake? Is that “cutting off an arm”? It does admit it.
-	It depends if the film is a success.
-	So if my film on failure is a success…
-	Well yes, you will have made your 15 years of research pay.
-	If my film on failure fails?
-	Then another part of you is amputated!

Talk about failure because lack is all I can talk about. Go back to my little pile of ideas. Show the hands, the faces, the human targets. Stop questioning them. Fifteen years it's been dragging on. Get rid of these people. Stick them on the wall, side by side. Be shot of them. End it. MAKE THEM PAY.

The end