Emma Cocker is a writer-artist based in Sheffield and Associate Professor in Fine Art, Nottingham Trent University. Emma's research focuses on artistic processes and practices, and the performing of ‘thinking-in-action’ therein. Her practice unfolds restlessly along the threshold between writing/art, including experimental, performative and collaborative approaches, alongside a mode of ‘contiguous writing’ — a way of writing-with that seeks to touch upon rather than being explicitly about. Her writing is 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, 2013; On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, 2013; Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line, 2017; 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.

Selected CV/Publication links


Emma Cocker
writer-artist and Associate Professor in Fine Art
Website: not-yet-there.blogspot.com

Recent Professional Experience
2017>  Nottingham Trent University: Associate Professor in Fine Art
2014 - 2017:  Nottingham Trent University: Reader in Fine Art
2005 - 2014: Nottingham Trent University: Senior Lecturer in Fine Art
2004 - 6, Sheffield Hallam University: Associate Lecturer in Fine Art
1999 - 2004, Site Gallery, Sheffield: Education Development Manager
             
Publications + Writing

Solo and Co-authored Publications
2022 > Live Coding: A Users’ Manual, forthcoming co-authored publication with Alan Blackwell, Geoff Cox, Thor Magnusson, Alex McLean, (MIT) 
2018: No Telos, co-ed with Danica Maier (Nottingham: Beam Editions)
2017: Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line, co-authored and edited with Nikolaus Gansterer and Mariella Greil, de Gruyter/Angewandte
2016: The Yes of the No, solo collection of writing, Site Gallery, Sheffield

Academic publications: Book chapters/anthology essays
2018:  'Writing without Writing: Conversation as Material' in The Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice (Routledge)
2016: 'The Italic I - Towards a Lexicon for Reflecting on the Arc of Falling', book chapter in collaboration with Clare Thornton, in The Fall: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
2016: 'Looking for Loopholes: Cartographies of Escape', book chapter in Cartographies of Exile, (ed.) Dr. Karen Bishop, (Routledge)
2013: 'Towards an Emergent Knowledge of the Margins: Reflections on an Urban Retreat', book chapter in Emerging Landscapes: Between Production and Representation, (ed.) Dr. Eugenie Shinkle, (Ashgate Publishing)
2013: 'Salvaging a Romantic Trope: The Conceptual Resurrection of Shipwreck in Recent Art Practice' in Shipwreck in Art and Literature: Images and Interpretations from Antiquity to the Present Day (ed.) Carl Thompson, (Routledge)
2013: Tactics for Not Knowing: Preparing for the Unexpected', in On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, (eds.) Rebecca Fortnum and Elizabeth Fisher (Kettles Yard/Black Dog Publishing)          
2013: 'Reading Towards Becoming Causal' in Reading/Feeling (If I Can't Dance..., Amsterdam)
2012: 'The Restless Line, Drawing', in Hyperdrawing: Beyond the Lines of Contemporary Arteds. Phil Sawdon and Russell Marshall (I. B. Tauris)
2012: 'Earthwalker', selected excerpt in Nature, ed. Jeffrey Kastner. (Documents of Contemporary Art Series, MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery)
2012: 'Border Crossings – Practices for Beating the Bounds', book chapter in Liminal Landscapes, (Routledge)
2011: 'Distancing the If and Then', essay in Drawing a Hypothesis: Figures of Research, (ed.) Nikolaus Gansterer, (Springer)
2011: 'Over and Over, Again and Again', book chapter in Contemporary Art and Classical Myth, (eds.) Jennie Hirsh and Isabelle Loring Wallace (Ashgate Publishing)
2010: 'Performing Stillness: Community in Waiting', book chapter in Stillness in a mobile world, (eds.) David Bissell and Gillian Fuller, (International Library of Sociology Series, Routledge)
2010:  'Over and Over, Again and Again', selected excerpt in Failure, (ed.) Lisa Le Feuvre, (Documents of Contemporary Art Series, MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery)
2009: 'Not Yet There', book chapter in Telling Stories: Countering Narrative in Art, Theory and Film, (eds.) Jane Tormey and Gillian Whiteley, (Cambridge Scholars Press)

Journal Articles
2020: 'Reading on Reading: Ecologies of Reading', co-authored with Cordula Daus and Lena Séraphin, in RUUKKU, Issue 14, Ecologies of Practice
2018: 'Choreo-graphic Figures: Scoring Aesthetic Encounters', co-authored with Mariella Greil and Nikolaus Gansterer, in Journal of Artistic Research, Issue. 18.
2018: 'What now, what next - kairotic coding and the unfolding future seized', in Digital Creativity Special Issue on Improvisational Creativity (Vol. 29, No.1).
2017: 'Weaving Codes / Coding Weaves - Penelopian Mêtis and the Weaver-Coder's Kairos' in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, (Vol. 15, Issue 2).
2016: 'Performing Thinking in Action: The Meletē of Live Coding' in the International Journal of Performance Arts + Digital Media, special issue Live Coding in Performance Arts, (Issue 12.2)
2016:  'The Italic I – a 16 stage lexicon on the arc of falling', in Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (TDPT), special issue on Showing and Writing Training.
2015:  'Notion of Notation >< Notation of Notion', article/artists' pages in collaboration with Nikolaus Gansterer and Mariella Greil in Performance Research, 'On An/notation'.
2015: 'Choreo-graphic Figures: Beginnings and Emergences' article in collaboration with Nikolaus Gansterer and Mariella Greil, in ruuukku, Finnish Journal of Artistic Research.
2014: 'Live Notation: Reflections on a Kairotic Practice' in Performance Research Vol.18, No.5  (October 2013) On Writing +Digital Media (eds.) Jerome Fletcher with Ric Allsopp.
2011: 'Moves Towards the Incomprehensible Wild', journal article in art+research, on Art and Animality, (ed.) Ron Broglio.
2011: 'Permission Granted', in issue of the online journal drain on Power
2011: 'The Yes of the No!', in issue of the online journal drain on Power
2011: 'R.S.V.P. Choreographing Collectivity through Invitation and Response', essay in Rhizomes, entitled Hives, Tribes, Assemblages: New Collectivities
2009:  'From Passivity to Potentiality: The Communitas of Stillness', peer-reviewed article in M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture, Vol. 12, No. 1. 
2009: 'Ethical Possession', peer-reviewed article in scope, Journal of film and television, issue on Cultural Borrowing
2009: 'Pay Attention to the Footnotes', peer-reviewed article in Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, issue on 'Writing Encounters in Performance and Pedagogical Practice'
2007: 'Desiring to be led Astray', peer reviewed article in Papers of Surrealism, AHRC Centre for Surrealism and its Legacies, Autumn 2007
2003: 'Give and Take: the possibility and problematic of transcultural exchange', article in Engage, 13, pp.55-59. ISSN 1365-9383

Catalogue essays + reviews
2020: 'Touched by A lighter Sensitivity; or How Not to Break the Egg', in Belén Cerezo, Seeing Bodies
2018: 'The Work of the Work and When the Work Works' in Lisa Watts, Four Hundred and Twenty-nice Significant Moments: Documenting an Artist's Research and Process
2018: 'One Versed in the Alchemy of What If', in Clare Thornton, Materials of Resistance
2016 - ‘Sampler of Samplers: Repeating Repeats Repeats’, in Grafting / Propriety: FromStitch to Drawn Line, ed. Danica Maier monograph, (Black Dog Publishing)
2015 - 'Writing Beyond Resurrection' in Unruly Utterances: Participation, Criticality and Compass Festival 2014.
2013 - 'Being in Two Minds', commissioned essay in Communion: Ben Judd (Black Dog Publishing)
2012 - Review of Hanne Darboven and Raphael Hefti at Camden Arts Centre, Frieze magazine 
2011 - ‘[…], catalogue essay on the work of Reuben Henry and Karin Kihlberg, (published by VIVID)
2011 -  ‘Making Room for Manoeuvre; or, Ways of Operating along the Margins’, text-work in Manual for Marginal Places, (published by closeandremote)
2011 - ‘Moves Towards the Incomprehensible Wild’, Dutton + Swindells, essay, in Institute of Beasts (published by Site Gallery, Sheffield)
2010 - ‘Without Rhyme or Reason’, essay on the work of Vlatka Horvat, in In Other Words In Other's Words And Other Words, (published by Bergen Kunsthall)
2010 - ‘Social Assemblage’, essay on the work of FrenchMottershead, in SHOPS: People and Process, (published by Site Gallery, Sheffield)
2010 - Review of Maelfa, Sean Edwards at Spike Island, Frieze magazine
2010 - Review of Anti festival, Kuopio, Finland, Frieze magazine
2009 -  'The Shimmering of the Tipping Point', essay on Katie Davies, (published by Yorkshire Artspace, Sheffield)
2009 - 'Somehow between the water and the wind', catalogue essay on Brigid McLeer, (published by Lanchaster Gallery, Coventry University)
2009  - Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship Programme Publication: An Archival Record: essays on Fiona Crisp, Annie Cattrell and Justin Carter (Art Editions North / English Heritage)
2008 - ‘Object Action Object: the work of Cool and Balducci', essay in Dance Theatre Journal
2008 -  'Wandering - straying from the habitual path', a-n magazine, July - August
2007 - 'Hidden Narratives', Dialogue, (April)
2007 - Review of Site Platform, Site Gallery, a-n magazine, (February)
2007  - ‘Into the fray’, essay, (published by Site Gallery, online)
2007 - ‘Are We There Yet?’ essay, (published Bloc, Sheffield, online)
2007 -  ‘The Art of Misdirection: Anti-Guides and Aimless Wandering’, in Dialogue – Burning Public Art (April 2007), guest edited by Gordon Dalton & Gavin Wade, (online)
2006  - ‘Distance’, exhibition catalogue essay, Galerie 5020, Salzburg
2006 - ‘Ordinary Monuments’, exhibition essay, Vane, Newcastle, (online)

Interviews with artists
2015 - ‘Indifference in Difference – An interview with Helen Chadwick’, in Twenty Years of MAKE magazine: Back to the Future of Women's Art, eds. Mo Throp and Maria Walsh, I.B.Tauris
2011 - ‘Meaningful Meaninglessness’ – in conversation with Candice Jacobs, Nottingham Visual Arts Magazine
2010 -  ‘Beyond Belief – interview with Ben Judd’, soanyway, online journal
2009 - 'Flagging Possibilities, in conversation with Vlatka Horvat', Dance Theatre Journal
2008 -  'The Art of Misdirection' interview with Lucy Harrison, in peer reviewed Drain Magazine, Psychogeography Issue
2007 -  ‘Unstable Truths – Interview with Clio Barnard’, (exhibition catalogue), Herbert Read Gallery
2007 - ‘Unstable Truths – Interview with Clio Barnard’, The Art Book, Volume 14 Issue 4 Page 73-74, Nov. 2007
1998 - ‘Indifference in Difference – An interview with Helen Chadwick’, catalogue text, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
1996 -  ‘Indifference in Difference – An interview with Helen Chadwick’, MAKE; The Magazine of Women’s Art: Issue 71: Aug/Sept, 1996

Peer review/editorial/advisory
2011 - 2019: Publishing Advisory Group, Live Art Development Agency
2010 > Peer-reviewer for TRACEY, online journal of drawing based research
2010 > Peer-reviewer for Rhizomes, online US based journal, http://www.rhizomes.net/
2006: Transmission: Speaking and Listening: Volume 5. ‘Daily Encounters, publication editor, (co-ed. with Sharon Kivland and Jaspar Joseph-Lester), Site Gallery, Sheffield, ISBN 1-899926-71-2
2005: Transmission: Speaking and Listening: Volume 4. ‘Provenance and Inscription’, publication editor, (co-ed. with Sharon Kivland and Jaspar Joseph-Lester). Site Gallery, ISBN 1-899926-66-6
2004: Transmission: Speaking and Listening Volume 3, ‘Ornament & Utility/Responsibility’, publication editor (co-ed. with Sharon Kivland and Lesley Sanderson). Site Gallery/Sheffield Hallam University. ISBN 1-899926-51-8
       
Education + Qualifications
MRes Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths, London
MA Visual Culture, University of Nottingham
BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of Plymouth