Emma Cocker
First – “Steps towards dancing solo”
Habitually coupled with the preposition from, dissent is often defined by the thing against which it takes a stand or strives to differ. It is brought into existence by the very terms that it wishes to dispute or challenge, constituted by the logic of the same system that it simultaneously seeks to resist. Based on a practice of alterity or of being otherwise, dissent sets itself in willful opposition to the sentiment or conventions of the majority opinion, the ascendant order. In doing so perhaps, it inherently plays into the sticky trap of binary relations where two partners are coaxed into the hold of a slow-playing conceptual waltz where one term will always lead and the other follow. Each creates the momentum that keeps the other in play, the awkward choreography of an uneasy dance pair forever bound to and yet repelled by one another. Parallel energies pulling in opposite directions create the dynamic of rotation or revolution; the close coupling of two systems transferring force from one to the other and back again. The relationship between dissent and its oppressive antithesis is often symbiotic. Each is propelled by the power of their opponent’s resistance or reaction; every new manoeuvre conceived in tentative anticipation of the other’s next step. In order then, for dissent to truly refuse the terms of the system in which it finds itself ensnared and encoded, it must devise new rules – a new choreography or form of autopoiesis specifically for the purpose of going it alone, for breaking established pattern or protocol, for dancing solo.
Second – “Becoming the cause”
Rather than taking up a specific cause or position against something else, dissent has the capacity to be constitutive (causal in and of itself), a critical and creative practice undertaken towards the production of new or unexpected ways of being in the world. Here, a shift occurs from being mobilized by external forces towards self-mobilization, towards causing oneself to act. Dissent is a form of protestation against normative or hegemonic ideologies (whatever they might be), the desire to break or escape from the pernicious stranglehold of conformity and expectation. It is the rejection of prescribed and accepted cartographies of subjectivity in favour of a perpetual – daily and life-long – quest for new modes of creative inhabitation not yet fully mapped out or declared known. Dissension necessarily involves some degree of contrariness – founded, as it is, on the principle of not concurring or agreeing with the authority of dominant modes of naming and knowing. It makes no sense then to try to make sense of a practice hell bent on thwarting the logic of consensus, the homogenous accord of multiple voices tethered to the tenor of a single note or opinion. It would be at odds with the idea of dissent itself to pin down individual moments of rebellion or sedition within a broader genealogy (political, theoretical or otherwise). Dissent resists such familiar strategies of organization and classification, for it perceives in them a nascent orthodoxy. Looking for other ways to inhabit the system – without being captured or constrained by it – requires that a given language or set of rules are no longer used to hold things in place, but rather become worked until malleable, bent back or folded to reveal other possibilities therein.
Third – “If everything has been done, then what is left?”
Revolution may never be exhausted but neither does it reach an end, for it is an impossible pursuit like that of the tireless dog chasing its own tail, like Sisyphus with his rock. The downfall of one form of oppression brings another in its wake; one tyranny collapses as another burgeons. Dissenting tactics are swiftly absorbed and redeployed as strategies of control and order; insurgent methods scrutinized and mirrored back, manifold. Progression does not necessarily bring about change, simply new ways of keeping things the same. However, progressive regimes are always predicated on the illusion of moving forward, leaving the old ways behind by declaring them useless or passé. Here then, dissent might mean to refuse to keep pace, rather to turn away towards what is and has been left. This reveals a latent politics, which – by way of opposing the right – harnesses the energy of the left’s wrongness, its untimeliness. This is the politics of the wasted and ignored; the overlooked, obscure or obsolete; the peripheral or illicit; all that has been cast aside, discarded and forgotten. Leftovers. Goods surplus to requirement or deemed unfit for purpose, having fallen foul by the wayside. Abandoned practices. Outmoded technologies. Redundant skills. Here though, the rejected or unwanted is resilient like the wily knotweed or the uninvited admirer who refuses to move on or go away. The left is out of order, out of line, out of sight. It is to be out of time, step or sync with the dominant societal drive onward, ever upward – it is to operate anticlockwise. If right is to tighten, then left is to loosen – it is a politics of undoing, of allowing things to unravel. Left is also a lover’s language, being closest to the heart.
Fourth – “Prepare for the unexpected”
Readiness is the state of being at the cusp of action, mind and body poised, awaiting signal. To be prepared is to anticipate the unforeseen future. Unknown situations, however, demand a speculative approach for you can never be wholly sure what to expect, what skills will be required. Yet, certain practices can be rehearsed daily: using your eyes; creating secret signs; receptiveness; reading maps; judging heights and distances; simple doctoring; stalking; learning to hide; plant identification, differentiating provisions from poisons; imagination; free speech; making fire; building bridges; early rising; whistling; wood whittling; weather wisdom, finding the North. Practice does not make perfect, rather a precarious capacity with no goal other than to be continually practiced. Repetition of a singular action creates thinking space in which to contemplate strategy – learning how to aim an arrow straight is to comprehend the vertiginous dynamic of a line of flight, to conceptualize an escape route. To prepare for the unexpected has a dual function: it is the gesture of getting oneself ready (for anything) but also of scarifying the ground, creating germinal conditions in which something unanticipated might arise. Emergency is both a state of crisis and the event of emergence, the brink of the new. Dissent desires to break with or defy expectation by willing into existence the unexpected or something unlike what has come before – the eruption of a form of thinking or being differently.
Fifth – “Make do”
The new or different is not something to passively anticipate like next season’s shoes, better it be conjured from the conditions of the present, from what is already here and now. Surrendering to one’s circumstances does not mean to give in to the inevitable but rather to yield to the possibilities of what each specific situation brings – learning to be resourceful with what is to hand. Reinvention is the practice of breaking down the familiar into a molten state in order to divert its flow, of affecting a change in perception. New economies emerge based on alternative principles of asymmetrical exchange – theft and piracy, gift giving and donation, the art of losing one thing and finding something else. Lending should be treated with some caution however, for whilst it suggests generosity it often expects more back in return. To make do is not to manage with less nor hope for more, rather a call towards a life of creative action over dutiful consumption – an instruction to begin making and doing.
Sixth – “Know your limits”
Limits mark the edges of what is deemed acceptable or permissible, what can be done or seen or said. They differentiate the known from what remains unchartered; distinguish the sanctioned from the improper or taboo. Limits determine capacity – how much something can tolerate before it begins to break, the degree of pressure that it can withstand. The most insidious are always self-imposed or voluntary, those that have been nurtured lovingly in the dark over years. However, limits (social or spatial) are rarely staked out with any real clarity. Lines on a map are often invisible at ground level, psychological limits revealed only once they have been breached or pushed too far. To know your limits does not mean to dutifully remain within their bounds but rather – like the poacher or pioneer – to develop the border knowledge that will allow the limit to be negotiated differently or rendered porous, to learn where the boundaries are and be mindful of how to facilitate their crossing.
Seventh – “Embody knowledge”
Knowledge is an oppressive tool of power once it is invested in, like lumps of gold. Yet ways can be found to avoid its forms from becoming bankable, transferable. Knowledge can be concealed tacitly within the body and smuggled across borders. Having confidence in something is a matter of faith, of trust. Memorization is the burning of an idea into the head and heart. Expert and amateur are bound by their love, for both obsessively surrender their attention to a single passion. Unlikely dissenters, both resist the liquid terms by which they are increasingly expected to conform. One rejects professionalism, whilst the other is a little too honed and focused, acutely specific. Localized knowledge fails to adapt or modify itself obediently to the societal demand for global forms of generic and malleable (non) skill, rather it strives to retain its awkward specificity, its strange and impenetrable dialect. Ideas become located at the fingertips or along one’s taste buds. Flesh refuses to be made dispensable, to give up its secrets easily. Other forms of knowledge are willfully scattered or dispersed through a community, where various individuals are entrusted as keepers or protectors of a carefully chosen fragment, a single coordinate on a living map. Such strategies refuse to divulge the extent of their knowledge, but rather only ever indicate towards the collective potential.
Eighth – “Fall beneath the radar”
Pinning your flag to the mast is the surest way of being seen, of announcing your location. Dissent is thus always unspectacular; fails to put on a show. Visible lines of strategy are equally discernible to friend and foe; an insurgent’s sources should therefore never be revealed. Failure to provide adequate references or documentation is a way of information – or a person – being taken out of authorized circulation, of being rendered unverifiable, insubstantial, even a little suspect. Dislocated or liminal states of being offer a sense of both liberation and loss, where nothing can be taken for granted and where everything is up for grabs. Different personae might be adopted as a means of subterfuge or for testing the potential of another’s style of life. Borrowing allows for trying something out without the responsibility of ever truly owning it, nor the risk of being owned by it. Dissident modes – of being or behavior – appear insensible or scrambled to dominant channels of communication, which will always operate on a different wavelength. Covert bandwidths – the psychic, the virtual, the nocturnal or subterranean – require a different kind of reception, require tuning to a more nuanced key or timbre. Non-standard or (seemingly) abnormal frequencies – of existence – often fall out of range and cannot be so easily traced. That which is perceived as powerless thus becomes a blind spot – invisible, exempted or ignored. Impotency emerges as a mode of stealth.
Ninth – “Am I bothered?”
Dissent derives its etymological origins from the Latin sentire: to feel or hear, to experience through the senses. However, it is the negation or reversal of the verb, a state of not feeling, of resisting sentiment, of failing to be moved. Yet, to defer reaction can augment one’s capacity to truly act or be affective, for action wavers at the mercy of the emotions, at sensation’s beck and call. Reaction is only ever action in response, more often a force of habit. Lack of responsiveness is not for the apathetic or idle though, for it is far easier to give in to distraction, to lose one’s focus and fall back into line. To not care (what other’s think) thwarts the opinion of the crowd or the consensus, by demonstrating that you couldn’t care less, that you do not give a damn. Practiced indifference is as unswerving as an ascetic’s abstinence, requiring the meditative withdrawal of one’s interest away from worldly pressures and expectations, towards a neutral state. The teenager thus becomes the site of a germinal politics. Their refusal to be bothered is the declaration of an emergent independency, an attempt to separate themselves from their surroundings, to prefer not to be overly troubled or affected by them. Adolescence is always unmotivated, lacking any real direction or purpose. It has yet to succumb to routine or settle into identifiable rhythms. Here, the body is experienced as an awkward and unpredictable assemblage that jerks and stutters; that is still undecided on which shape it should take. Habits are adopted briefly and loved intensely before they become boring and are abandoned with haste – affiliations bloom for the duration of a day.
Tenth – “Going overboard”
To jump ship attests to a loss of faith, to the hopeless recognition that there is nothing else that can be done. Yet, there are other ways of breaking rank by remaining on board. Any uneven distribution of weight or action will inevitably unsettle the equilibrium. The horizontal order (of left and right) can be supplemented by a vertical logic (the principles of more or less, of deficit and excess). Expectation can be disappointed through the practice of inefficiency, of deliberately failing or somehow falling short. It can also be exceeded, surprised. Dissidence adversely plays out under the cover of over-eagerness. Enthusiasm can become too much of a good thing when it is over-excited and a little lawless like the sugar-rush of a hyperactive child.
Eleventh – “Being in two minds”
Dissident practices seem difficult to reason (with) for they are prone to switch tack; they appear to be lacking determination, keeping formless or mercurial. Theirs is a bipolar logic that oscillates between opposing positions in order to avoid becoming fixed, immobilized. Asceticism is swiftly followed by conviviality; gravitas by levity, insensitivity with care. Willingness exhibits wavering commitment – comes over willy-nilly. Utility is conceived to have no purpose; the act of not taking something seriously is performed with certain sobriety, critique turns from negation towards affirmation – towards the yes of the no. Contradiction signals the desire to keep one’s options open, for things to remain still unresolved. Inconsistency becomes a method then for resisting or rejecting consistency as the desirable paradigm, a tactic for preventing complex human experiences from becoming reduced to a single or stable position, from being simplified. By simultaneously being both and neither, inconsistency reveals the inadequacy or fallacy of existing systems of classification. It describes the restless state of being critical of or frustrated with the existing options, whilst relentlessly searching for another way to describe the condition of being human.
Twelfth – “Without rhyme or reason”
Utility is the law of use, which measures individual things by their capacity for service or employment; setting their value or worth against how efficiently they get the job done. Here, nothing is without good reason; everything is where it should be, as you would expect. Ergonomics maximize efficacy through the fit between form and function, between workers and their place of work. Performance is optimized through choice design, greater speeds yielded to the more streamlined cut. Whilst utility determines how something will be used, a lack of specific purpose opens up the possibility of unexpected interactions, of polyvalence. Actions appear isolated and disinvested of direction or become repeated senselessly until meaning is evacuated or made absurd. To lack purpose is to refuse to behave according to dominant teleological or goal-oriented expectations, to remain unmotivated and without clear aim. Purposelessness meanders errantly against the logic of the most direct path, taking further detours rather than cutting corners. Uselessness is activity liberated from its servitude; or else the expectant state of promise or potentiality before purpose has been fully declared, before a use or function has been defined.
Thirteenth – “Bide your time”
(S)he who hesitates is lost according to the logic of swift and definitive action, seemingly unable or unwilling to make a move. However, to dally or dawdle is to take one’s time (back). Failure to respond instinctively or directly leaves thinking space for imagining unexpected lines of action, for initiating a new trajectory of events rather than simply reacting to or repeating the old. Hesitation waits for the propitious moment; a reflective interval within which to conceive a less predictable or predetermined future. To encourage a delay between stimulus and response disrupts the logic of cause and effect, shifting attention away from the deliberate towards the process of deliberation. Stalling disturbs rhythm and unsettles familiar patterns creating the spacing of a missed beat, an affective gap or vacuum into which something else might be conjured to fill the void. Moments of stillness and slowness – of creative non-production or the event of doing nothing – break or rupture the smooth flow of habitual routine, momentarily illuminating openings and fissures within which to imagine things other than what they are.
Fourteenth – “Opting in”
Dissent plays games but refuses to play the game; it questions or misuses the logic of the dominant system whilst declining to leave its frame. To play life like a game is to accept its rules for the pleasure of exploiting their loopholes, as points of critical pressure or leverage against which to work. Rather than being surrendered to with passive and acquiescent obedience, the rules of a game should be approached consciously by one’s own volition, modified or dismantled once they begin to stifle action or no longer offer provocation. To play life according to a different set of rules involves teaching new recruits the tricks, for all games require their players, new initiates willing to yield to the delight of play’s darker arts. Dissent is played out through the force of collective action, thwarting the disempowering and atomizing effects of individualization – the oppressive regime of divide and rule. Group formations align spontaneously into unstructured communities, the logic of shoaling replacing that of the school. Synchronicities form through affinity rather than conformity, each new move determined by the direction of the collective that is its own leader.
Fifteenth – “Hope springs eternal”
Dissent is not so much resistant then as forever hopeful, a prospective practice that is always searching for new ways to rupture the conditions of the present in its commitment to the possibility of something different – another future. Dissent is having a belief or faith in the capacity of things to be otherwise. It is a quest of an irresolvable kind however, for every new situation brings with it a new order of normality and convention. As such, dissent remains an ongoing endeavour that requires continual attention and rejuvenation, a critical following from within every new generation who refuse to see the world and their place within it as fixed and determined, as unchanging or unchangeable.
‘The Yes of the No!’ was produced during a writing residency at the artist-led project Plan 9 in Bristol, as part of the project The Summer of Dissent, 2009.
Emma Cocker is a writer and a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University. Recent essays include Over and Over Again and Again in Classical Myth/Contemporary Art (Ashgate Publishing 2010) and in Failure (Documents of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel/MIT, 2010); Performing Stillness: Community in Waiting in Stillness in a Mobile World (Routledge, 2011), Distancing the If and Then; in Drawing a Hypothesis: Figures of Research, (Springer Verlag, 2011), The Restless Line, Drawing in Hyperdrawing: Beyond the Lines of Contemporary Art, (I.B. Tauris, 2011).
See http://not-yet-there.blogspot.com/