Stalking - be it of an actual kind in what remains of and passes for the real world, or a virtual activity conducted online - doesn't have a great reputation. Doubtless this is due to the fact that stalking is often related to harassment and intimidation and because it can be not only predatory but creepy in character; no one, it seems, likes to be followed and spied on by strangers (even in a world of Facebook and CCTV).
And yet, is it not possible that we might understand stalking not in terms of physical and psychological abuse, but rather as a fascinating instance of neo-courtly love in an age after the orgy ...?
For it is certainly the case that many stalkers feel a strong and genuine bond of affection for the person they choose to secretly shadow and, in essence, there's a striking similarity between medieval erotico-spiritual practice and this illicit postmodern phenomenon: both are a highly specialized expression of a love that is all too human and yet transcendent; passionate and yet restrained; true and yet founded upon fantasy.
For it is certainly the case that many stalkers feel a strong and genuine bond of affection for the person they choose to secretly shadow and, in essence, there's a striking similarity between medieval erotico-spiritual practice and this illicit postmodern phenomenon: both are a highly specialized expression of a love that is all too human and yet transcendent; passionate and yet restrained; true and yet founded upon fantasy.
The stalker, whilst accepting the independence of the object of their desire, nevertheless attempts to bring themselves to the attention of the latter by various means and often goes to extraordinary lengths in order to prove the seriousness of their ardour and commitment. They may or may not be hoping for sexual intimacy, but this hardly seems to be the point and it would be mistaken, I think, to posit this as the ultimate goal; there are certainly easier ways to get a date or get laid, even for the most incompetent or inadequate of would-be lovers.
Indeed, in certain cases of stalking there is no sexual motive involved at all: consider the famous case involving French conceptual artist, Sophie Calle. Here is an example of a woman stalking a man - known as Henri B. - without having any particular interest in him and certainly no erotic aspirations or expectations. It was Calle's indifferent determination to follow Henri B., without motive or any identifiable type of psychoses or neurotic compulsion, that made her story so intriguing to Jean Baudrillard, who - as we shall see - interprets her actions in terms of his theory of seduction (i.e. an ironic and fatal game of hide-and-seek to do with power, appearance, reversibility, loss of will, and being led astray).
For those of you who don't know this case, the facts are these:
After stalking several strangers through the streets of Paris, Calle met Henri B. at a party. He told her he was travelling to Italy the following day and so Calle decided to go to Venice herself and track him down. After phoning round a large number of hotels, she finally found him. Then, suitably disguised, she spent the next few days following Henri B. around the city; photographing his movements and encounters with others and recording details in a diary alongside her own musings.
After stalking several strangers through the streets of Paris, Calle met Henri B. at a party. He told her he was travelling to Italy the following day and so Calle decided to go to Venice herself and track him down. After phoning round a large number of hotels, she finally found him. Then, suitably disguised, she spent the next few days following Henri B. around the city; photographing his movements and encounters with others and recording details in a diary alongside her own musings.
Eventually, Henri B. spotted and confronted his stalker and the game was effectively over - although Calle still contrived to arrive back in Paris at the same time as her object in order to get one last secret picture of him disembarking from the train on which he had made his way home. She eventually published the black-and-white photographs accompanied by a text as Suite vénitienne (1983).
The book also included a typically insightful essay by Baudrillard entitled 'Please Follow Me' which contains the following passage on the seductive joy of becoming-other and becoming-object:
"To stalk the other is to take charge of their itinerary; it is to watch over their life without them knowing it. It is to ... relieve them of that existential burden, the responsibility of their own life. Simultaneously, she who follows is herself relieved of responsibility for her own life as she follows blindly in the footsteps of the other. And thus a wonderful reciprocity exists in the cancellation of each existence, in the cancellation of each subject's tenuous position as a subject. Stalking the other, one replaces them, exchanges lives, passions, wills, transforms oneself in the other's stead. It is perhaps the only way one can finally find fulfilment."
Note: An English edition of the Calle/Baudrillard work, trans. Danny Barash and Danny Hatfield, is available from Bay Press (1988).
The book also included a typically insightful essay by Baudrillard entitled 'Please Follow Me' which contains the following passage on the seductive joy of becoming-other and becoming-object:
"To stalk the other is to take charge of their itinerary; it is to watch over their life without them knowing it. It is to ... relieve them of that existential burden, the responsibility of their own life. Simultaneously, she who follows is herself relieved of responsibility for her own life as she follows blindly in the footsteps of the other. And thus a wonderful reciprocity exists in the cancellation of each existence, in the cancellation of each subject's tenuous position as a subject. Stalking the other, one replaces them, exchanges lives, passions, wills, transforms oneself in the other's stead. It is perhaps the only way one can finally find fulfilment."
Note: An English edition of the Calle/Baudrillard work, trans. Danny Barash and Danny Hatfield, is available from Bay Press (1988).
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