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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REFUSE DEFINITION

Or seemingly invites choice, signals the possibility of an alternative — this or this? Or promises something somehow different, by opening the experience of what is in the direction of what might be. Or has the capacity to question how things are, suggesting that there is another way. Still, despite its seemingly affirmative, perhaps even utopian, potential, or can sometimes serve to close things down or stifle. Or can create a proliferation of possibilities that leads only to dissatisfaction and doubt — the disquiet of discontent, the fear of missing out or of a wrong decision taken. Or can force one’s hand, requiring a selection is made, preference declared between two mutually exclusive options. In this sense, or reinforces the binary logic of opposites, necessitating the categorical distinction between this or that, either/or, yes/no. Positive/negative. Active/passive. Open/closed. Belief/doubt. Thinking/feeling. Refusing definition — neither/nor not either/or. Where or mediates the unfolding of events, with every opportunity seized, others have been abandoned, cast aside. Yet in every preference, the shadow of rejection or exclusion lurks. With every yes there is an unavoidable no, inevitable negation. The privileging of this can easily diminish the value of that. Find ways to harness the transformative capacity of the or (for opening things up or out) while at the same time seeking to stymie its more constricting effects (its tendency to oppose and divide).

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

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