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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EXTRA-SENSORY PERCEPTION

To notice the changing within the seemingly unchanging requires the training or re-tuning of the senses. The sensory apparatus of the body has been conditioned to act within a certain spectrum of expectation. Senses conspire to recognise the familiar, to disregard that which differs, falls out of range. Like other muscles within the body, the senses can be made to stretch or extend, reach and strain. Perception can be pressured beyond its habitual limits, to become extra-sensory. Begin with the eyes — the most susceptible of the senses for re-cognising only the thought known, moreover, for being easily tricked, deceived. Consider the magician’s sleight of hand, the slowness of the eyes against the quick of fingers. The eyes often fail to see; instead thinking-a-seeing of that which isn’t really there. Work out the eyes, for true perception — perspicacity — requires sharp-sightedness, the art of keen vision.

From Emma Cocker, The Yes of the No, (Sheffield: Site Gallery, 2016), p. 89. Revised extract of a text that was previously published in Manual, an artists’ bookwork produced in collaboration with performance artist and writer Victoria Gray, (2014).

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