ÍMPAR Online journal for artistic research Vol. 3 | n.2 | 2019, p.60-89 ISSN 2184-1993 doi: 10.34624/impar.v3i2.14152 https://proa.ua.pt/index.php/impar 60 Art Worlds, Voice and Knowledge: thoughts on quality assessment of artistic research outcomes Stefan Östersjö1 Piteå School of Music, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden Abstract: This paper discusses the nature of artistic knowledge, and proposes that knowledge production through artistic research takes material and embodied forms. Further, the author proposes that artistic researchers must be clearly situated in an art world, as well as in academia. The assessment of artistic quality must be carried out to a great extent outside academia, by agents identified in the art world within which the project is situated. In the paper, four recent PhD theses produced in three institutions in Sweden are presented and analysed from the socio-cultural perspective of their art worlds. Further, the paper proposes that artistic knowledge can be further accessed through a systematic inquiry into the material and performative forms in which it is manifested. A brief analysis of the emergence of a shared voice between a composer and a performer - through a study of the use of transcription in the working process - aims to further unpack the possibilities of accessing artistic knowledge through multiple methods for documentation and analysis. In the final analysis, the author proposes that artistic research must develop more considered approaches to artistic knowledge, and thereby, also to aim for artistic results that allow artistic researchers to make a difference in their respective art worlds. Keywords: artistic knowledge; assessment; voice; art worlds 1. Introduction Although artistic research indeed has become an established discipline in many countries across Europe over the past twenty years, the approaches to several fundamental perspectives, such as publication formats, epistemology and methods remain diverse, as does the question of assessment of artistic quality. As summarized by Henk Borgdorff in an interview in an Australian journal: I don’t think there is an overall European consensus in that regard. Maybe there shouldn't be one either because the idea that something is fixed in assessment criteria doesn't do justice to a field which is always changing (as science is). As Bruno Latour says it is ‘in action’. Maybe it is good that there is no fixed set of criteria for the assessment of artistic research because then we can keep the discussion open. The discursivity or inter-subjective judgement framework should be in place. So, you should endorse or strengthen the debate but I don't think there are any definitive criteria to assess whether this is good or not. (Wilson, 2016, n.p.) Along similar lines, the aim of the present paper is not to propose a “fixed set of criteria” for the assessment of artistic quality, but rather to contribute to a discussion which will not have a final endpoint. The argument builds on a consideration of epistemological and methodological perspectives, in order to approach the formulation of a framework through which a more considered understanding of knowledge production through artistic research can be created. 2. The art worlds of artistic research In this paper I will develop an understanding of artistic quality as the result of the negotiation between many actors in a network of human and non-human agents, in a specific socio- cultural context. Howard Becker (1982) refers to such contexts as “art worlds”, which are inherently dependent on cooperation, but also and importantly, do not have boundaries 1 stefan.ostersjo@ltu.se