Emma Cocker is a writer-artist whose research focuses on artistic processes and practices, and the performing of thinking-in-action therein. Cocker’s language-based artistic research comprises a matrix of writing, reading and conversation practices, including diverse process-oriented, dialogic-collaborative and aesthetic-poetic approaches to working with and through language. She was a key-researcher within the project Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line (2014 – 2017) for exploring the thinking-feeling-knowing between choreography, drawing and writing. Cocker’s 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; On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, 2013; The Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice, 2018; Live Coding: A User's Manual, 2023, and in the solo collections, The Yes of the No, 2016, and How Do You Do?, 2024. Cocker is co-founder of the international Society for Artistic Research Special Interest Group for Language-based Artistic Research. She is Associate Professor in Fine Art, Nottingham Trent University.

Symposium: There is no knowledge, only encounters

There is no knowledge, only encounters

Thursday 17 November 2022

Backbone050, Groningen


Taking the quote “There is no knowledge, only encounters” (Bibi Straatman) as a point of departure, this 'hands-on' symposium is an exploration on the attitude of not knowing. In what way can ‘not knowing’ be transformative for an artistic practice? In what ways can this kind of artistic practice bridge and contribute to new ways of seeing and acting in different layers of our society? The thematic focus and desired outcome of the symposium is the ‘performative’ in its multitude of meanings.

 

This event is a stepping stone in ongoing research by the independent research unit Not Knowing Core (NK Core) from Artistic Research Community in the North (ARC). NK Core is formed by Adri, Kevin, Simona and T.S.Anna. The event is organised in collaboration with professorship “Image in Context”, and supported by Kunstraad Groningen. A temporary collective, formed by Emma Cocker (UK), Ernest Truely (US/FIN), Adri Schokker (NL), Kevin Perrin (NL/FR), Simona Kicurovska (NL/MK) and T.S. Anna (NL/LV), is preparing to host and facilitate encounters that will create a field of action: one where process, not-knowing and public meet in a shared space.

 

The symposium will be held at Backbone050, a form college school and cultural hub where more than 100 artists, designers, musicians and other cultural and social organisations have their studio’ s and offices. The beautiful abandoned indoor swimming pool will be the center stage for our event.

 

Address: Travertijnstraat 12, 9743 SZ, Groningen. Tickets available here.