part ii

VoiCes

as we observed in the preface, considering the problem of research in the arts from a
foundational point of view is only one possible approach. examining foundations from
a historical or intellectual point of view brings other issues to the fore whilst making
some fade into the background or disappear completely. This has something to do with
the relationship of the researcher to what is being researched. in adopting a certain
historical or intellectual position in relation to a subject, one is also forced to adopt a
conceptual vocabulary resulting in the use of a particular voice. We have a number of
things in mind when we use the term ‘voice’.
at its simplest level, there is a grammatical issue. it is noticeable that scientific
writing tends to be undertaken in the third person. This is expressed as ‘he’ or ‘she’
did or thought such and such (which has the tendency to dissociate the author from
any responsibility for what is being reported) or it is expressed in the passive voice: ‘it
was done’ (tending to suggest that no one has responsibility for the interpretation).
This is not an accidental feature of scientific reporting. The scientific method tends to
emphasize impersonal properties that can be replicated, and hence it diminishes the
voice of the researcher themselves in favour of more generalized outcomes. The use of
the third person emphasizes their ideal ‘disinterestedness’ of the relationship between
the researcher and the researched.
The ideal relationship in the arts is quite different. one is usually well aware of the
author of an artistic production. Composers, performers, artists are known by name
and part of the value that is attributed to their outcomes is that they were personally
responsible for them and they actively mediate the audience’s relationship with the
topic in question. For example, it devalued the Tate Britain collection of sketches by
John Constable when it was discovered that some of these sketches were actually by
his son lionel. The images themselves were unchanged but the value of the authorship
had changed. The example shows that the audience was more interested in it being
‘a John Constable’ than in it being ‘a representation of such and such’. indeed one
often refers to an artwork as being ‘a Constable’, ‘a Rembrandt’, etc. emphasizing the
principle interest in the artist as the mediator of what is represented. as a consequence,
one might expect that the grammar of arts research is different from the grammar of
research in other subjects.