Artistic Research Does #7 - 'Tactics for Not Knowing' by Emma Cocker

This research exposition is conceived in conjunction with the publication, Artistic Research Does #7 (2023), which presents a translation of Emma Cocker’s essay ‘Tactics for Not Knowing: Preparing for the Unexpected’, originally published in Elizabeth Fisher and Rebecca Fortnum, (eds.) On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, (Black Dog Publishing, 2013). See https://i2ads.up.pt/publicacoes/artistic-research-does-7/ In addition to the translation and re-publication of the original text, the revised version of ‘Tactics for Not Knowing’ in Artistic Research Does #7 offers two further interventions in the form of annotations. In one column of margin notes, Cocker shares additional reflections, referring to some of her more recent artistic research projects and collaborations that continue to resonate with the concerns of the original text. In parallel, a second column of margin notes comprises the titles of additional pieces of contiguous writing drawn from two collections of Cocker’s writing, The Yes of the No (2016) and How Do You Do? (2023). Within this online version these margin notes include hyperlinks that enable the reader to access these different thought-fragments of writing. Artistic Research Does is edited by Catarina Almeida, André Alves. Artistic Research Does is published by i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society is a R&D unit based at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (FBAUP), financed by the Portuguese agency Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).

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RELEASE OF LANGUAGE

Before they can become material, words might need first be rendered matter. Emptied of signification, evacuation of semantic sense. Collapse to sound, sonorous babble of emancipation. Dispersal. Disintegration. Release of language from itself, rhythmic and relational, a move beyond informational exchange. Beyond representation, beyond the symbolic, ventilation of the sign. Displace the agency of words to escape the regime of this means this. Names can be forgotten; syntax lost, thrown to the wind. Not only words but also letting go the meaning of things. Yet language seems the most stable of things, so how to avoid it solidifying further. Less towards density but rather an enlivening through aeration. Practice of resuscitation — revitalise through the bringing of air. Resuscitate — bring back to life, invigorate. Creating air holes — punctuation through the intervention of breath. Activate the intermediary zone between voice and exhalation. Hyperventilation. Not for the proliferation of meaning towards meaninglessness but a practice of sensuous soundings.

From Emma Cocker, How Do You Do? (Nottingham: Beam Editions, 2023)

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