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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UNSCHOOLING MIND AND MUSCLE

Unschooling of mind and muscle. Training against training. Forging a different relationship to movement, to being and behaving. Recognise the benefits of periodic imbalance. Harness the dynamic potential of the diagonal as deviation from the regime of verticality, of uprightness, the pressure of keeping one’s head aloft, held high. Test unquestioned values of rigour and erectness in thought and in form. Towards elasticity; flexibility; agility; even litheness of intelligence, of body, materials and of mind. Forgo the preservation and protection of an assured and stabilised sense of self, the individualising tendency of contemporary life. Decline the myth of the individual. Resist the privileging of independence. Recognise one’s interdependency. Accept assistance, scaffold or prop. Bend backwards, not in acquiescence but rather as an act of trust. Let one’s weight be borne. Supported, let one’s capacity be bolstered. Allow one’s reach or range to stretch beyond the limits of one’s own. Teeter on the cusp of collapse — active renunciation of structural power. Towards radical passivity. Letting go — a liquid state. Horizontality — becoming formless. Ecstatic impotency — the jouissance of impuissance.

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

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