Tacking: a tacktical methodology for making art

Abstract

This is a thesis-only practice-led PhD that presents the practice of tacking and the “tacktical methodology” that emerges out of it as my original contribution to knowledge. Tacking is a way of practising string figures differently, that is by practising them between two people, not passing one figure on to the other as in a cat’s cradle, but with one person using their left hand and the other person using their right hand. By drawing on the range of meanings of the word ‘tacking’ and its etymological relations and friends: ‘tacky’, ‘tack’, ‘tactic’, and ‘tact,’ I have constructed a tacktical methodology for thinking about and doing art differently. The inquiry that resulted in tacking and a..