Emma Cocker is a writer-artist based in Sheffield and Associate Professor in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University. Operating under the title Not Yet There, Cocker's research focuses on the process of artistic exploration and the performing of ‘thinking-in-action’ emerging therein; on models of (art) practice and subjectivity that resist the pressure of a single, stable position by remaining wilfully unresolved. Her mode of working unfolds restlessly along the threshold between writing/art, including experimental, performative and collaborative approaches to producing texts parallel to and as art practice. Cocker's recent writing has been published in Failure, 2010; Stillness in a Mobile World, 2010; Drawing a Hypothesis: Figures of Thought, 2011; Hyperdrawing: Beyond the Lines of Contemporary Art, 2012; Reading/Feeling (Affect), 2013; On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, 2013; Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line, 2017; The Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice, and as a solo collection entitled The Yes of the No, 2016.

Publication: Tripwire - a journal of poetics


I have been invited to contribute to a forthcoming issue of Tripwire, a journal of poetics. Tripwire, a journal of poetics, is devoted to a counter-institutional exploration of radical and experimental modes of contemporary poetics, art, and cultural politics. The journal was founded in 1998 by Yedda Morrison and David Buuck. Six issues were published between 1998-2002, with a special supplement published in September 2004 for the RNC protests in New York. Current and back issues are available here and through Small Press Distribution.

Tripwire 8 * CITIES
Contributors: Anne Boyer, Cecily Nicholson, MB, DH, Amy Balkin, Kaia Sand & Daniela Molnar, Ryan Eckes, Kim Hyesoon, Zarina, Scott Sørli, Michael Woods, Lucky Pierre, Grupo de Arte Callejero (trans. MR translation collective), Jonas Staal & Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Emma Cocker, Nancy Popp, Gonzalo Millan (trans. Annegret Nill), Dambudzo Marechera, Lucy Parsons, and a special feature from Oakland, featuring Oki Sogumi, Jill Richards, Lara Durback, Wendy Trevino, Joshua Clover, Mayakov+sky Platform, Jasper Bernes, Emji Spero, Erika Staiti, Kate Robinson, and more. December 2014. Buy here.


Event: Experimental Poetry


On 15th October I presented a poetry reading at this event hosted by The Other Room in Manchester, alongside Ulli Freer, Matt Fallaize and Jon Thompson. The Other Room is a reading series presenting experimental writers at The Castle Hotel in Manchester organised by James Davies, Tom Jenks and Scott Thurston. 


Below are a couple of short extracts that catch the beginning and ending of the reading, as well as the full documentation of my reading.



Event: Method Lab opening and "Live Exploration"


Choreo-graphic Figures. Deviations from the Line
Method Lab I
Nikolaus Gansterer / Mariella Greil / Emma Cocker
Opening Event
5 August 2014: 15.00 – 19.00 (with A Live Exploration from 16.00)
Probebühne des Schauspielhauses, Rechte Wienzeile 73 (backyard), 1050 Vienna, Austria



Documentation of Live Exploration.  Choreo-graphic Figures. Deviations from the Line - Method Lab I.
Photograph: Simona Koch

 Opening Event for the residency laboratory Choreo-graphic Figures. Deviations from the Line - Method Lab I. During the ImpulsTanz festival Gansterer, Greil and Cocker have been engaged in the residency “Method Lab I ”, supported by the input of Alex Arteaga and Lilia Mestre. On 5 August 2014, the Method Lab opened to the public, with the key researchers available to informally discuss the project, Choreo-graphic Figures. Deviations from the Line. Processes and approaches developed during the Method Lab were presented through a Live Exploration in order to make visible various intensities of the research process through the re-visitation of key moments of shared enquiry. The Live Exploration was followed by discussion around the issues and questions emerging within the Method Lab. More documentation of the opening event can be found here.


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