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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TOWARDS THE UNPREDICTABLE

Understand the properties of materials but less towards prediction, anticipating how a given material will behave in advance of interaction. Towards the unpredictable — knowing what something can do, its range of expectation, in order then to be surprised. Twist of heuristics away from practical problem-solving to problematising the assumption that is made based on what has come before. Feeling one’s way, blindly. What if? What else? Working against — using the material’s constraints and limitations as leverage. Working with — harnessing its qualities, seeing how far a material can be pushed or explored. Mutual modification — adapting one’s behaviour in correspondence with each material encounter. What kind of treatment does a given material invite? What kind of meeting is required? Materials-in-relation, combining and recombining. How do material properties change through the proximity and intervention of other things? This and that, or that with this, or this and this and this. A proliferation of possibilities. Or pare things back — there can be efficacy in keeping things simple. Recall how the magic of close-up convinces through its economy of means. Experiments should be repeated but less for the validation or verification of a result, but rather, for building the confidence to improvise. Modify the rules as the experiment unfolds. Note the variables, but do not count on constants, for in every encounter everything is changed.

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

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