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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KNOW YOUR LIMITS

Limits mark the edges of what is deemed acceptable or permissible, what can be done or seen or said. They differentiate the known from what remains unchartered; distinguish the sanctioned from the improper or taboo. Limits determine capacity, how much something can tolerate before it begins to break; the degree of pressure that it can withstand. The most insidious can be self-imposed or voluntary, those that have been nurtured lovingly in the dark over years. However, limits — whether social or spatial — are rarely staked out with any real clarity. Lines on a map are often invisible at ground level, psychological limits revealed only once they have been breached or pushed too far. To know your limits does not mean to dutifully remain within their bounds but rather — like the poacher or pioneer — to develop the border knowledge that will allow the limit to be negotiated differently or rendered porous, to learn where the boundaries are and be mindful of how to facilitate their crossing.

From Emma Cocker, The Yes of the No, (Sheffield: Site Gallery, 2016), p. 14. Revised extract of a text that was previously published as a pamphlet entitled Yes of the No, commissioned and published by Plan 9, Bristol as part of The Summer of Dissent (2009). The original text, Yes of the No was previously published in drain journal, Power, (2011).

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