In the 1970s, the French novelist Serge Doubrovsky coined the term “autofiction” to signal the admixture of fact and fiction that characterized his literary work. Autofiction, as articulated
by Doubrovsky, is rather more and less than complete fiction. It is situated simultaneously in invention and autobiography, though either may be made up. Autofictional practice might involve the retention of one’s real name and persona while maintaining insertion into imaginary life, or the creation of a fictional clone who narrates the author’s real existence.1 As elaborated subsequently by Vincent Colonna, autofiction transcends the idea of genre and instead should be understood as “an agencement, as an assemblage of strategies” with the capacity, even imperative, to function as a critical procedure (Bloois 2007). The idea of autofiction as articulated variously by Doubrovsky, Gérard Genette, and others has recently been expanded in order to be brought to bear on the conceptual practices of artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, Adrian Piper, Bruce Nauman, and Sophie Calle in a form of “visual autofiction” (Bloois 2007)