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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CONDITIONS OF OPPORTUNITY

Moments of transformation can emerge as byproducts of intention, revealed in shadow of what is being consciously produced. Perhaps — an expression of both uncertainty and possibility. Per-haps — per (by, through) and hap (chance). Chance — a falling out or falling upon, what comes about, what happens. Moment of favourable contingency, chance is an unforeseen occurrence seemingly beyond all human control. Chance harbours the promise of something unknown or unexpected. Yet it is not so much that chance brings about the event of something new, as creates the conditions of opportunity or kairos. Kairos — the right time, a decisive moment whose fleeting opportunity must be grasped before it passes. Kairos describes a qualitatively different mode of time to that of chronos, of chronological time. Timeliness, that critical time of opportunity when something could happen. Not an abstract measure of time passing but of time ready to be seized. However, kairos has little power on its own — it requires the perceptions and actions of an individual capable of seizing its potential.

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

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