SHIMMER OF CUNNING
The time of opportunity is not just to be patiently awaited. Consider the Ancient art of techné, a tactical knowledge capable of creating the conditions wherein the opportune time of kairos might arise, and for knowing how and when to act in response. Here, techné is not taken to mean only the skilful art of making and doing, the technical facility of craftsmanship. Rather it describes a way of operating within situations which are contingent and shifting, mercurial and ever-changing. Chance is the field of indeterminacy that techné seeks to exploit, as sailing works with as much as against the contingencies of the water and the wind. Techné strives to affect a change of balance or power, steering the direction of events by wily means rather than through force. It harnesses the wisdom of mêtis, a cunning intelligence subtle enough to seize those opportunities made momentarily visible as the prevailing logic within a given structure or system yields. Refusing the limitations of seeing things only in black and white, mêtis has been described as analogous to shimmering iridescence like a dappled fawn or a weapon’s glint; a mottled snake — wriggling; a swarm of bees; turning fish — refracting light; a fox’s mind; the many-coloured sheen of liver’s skin, a magician’s illusion. The guile of mêtis is practised as an art like that of catching the wind or turn of the tide. It is no surprise that the motif of sailing recurs again and again within Ancient Greek descriptions of both techné and mêtis, the figure of a helmsman steering their boat against the turbulent forces of wave and weather. For, it is not the chance wind that sails the boat, rather the helmsman’s capacity for knowing how to work (with) it.
From Emma Cocker, How Do You Do? (Nottingham: Beam Editions, 2023)