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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CUSP OF RECOGNITION

The art of seeing beyond what is visible is not performed through an increase in the quantifiable pressure of observation, through closer scrutiny or more intensive inquisition. It is not a case of getting nearer, for this will only amplify the detail, bringing the visible closer into range. Different means of looking produce different registers of affect. It is a question of finding the right method. The scientific glance might be too incisive. It strives to see beyond the visible by searching first beneath, anaesthetising its subject before peeling back its layers. Nor will microscopic curiosity uncover the secrets of the interior. Its lens creates further opacity, rendering the visible only less familiar to the eye. The act of looking harder, more forcefully, causes things to retreat or withdraw, for they might not respond well to such advances. Patiently then, for trust must be gained. To see beyond what is habitually seen is not achieved by pushing the visible aside, for certain truths become too vulnerable if forcibly exposed. The visible is a veil whose logic is only ever lifted, briefly, momentarily let to slip or to fall. Openings in the fabric of the visible are thus not so much produced then as encountered, fleetingly glimpsed. Here, the glimpse operates as an aperture in the real, a portal to other places and times, both future and past. The horizontal present is ruptured by another frequency of experience, the vertical or vertiginous force of something felt or sensed. By catching both the watched and witness off-guard, the glimpse is experienced as a poetic fall from or faltering within what is known or certain. It exists at the cusp of recognition, where the witness is left unable to fully find the words for communicating what they have seen.

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

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