Abstract

The individual’s museum experience is inseparable from what Crary describes as infinite changes in society’s habits of viewing. Along with Foster and Bryson’s theories surrounding vision, these ideas are important in understanding the notion of viewing art, however, they do not address the museum viewer as a corporeal body. Yet this bodily engagement, affected as much by the physical architecture as the cultural contexts, employs all the senses to not only navigate the museum, but to viscerally experience it. This paper, while contextualising the art viewing experience by touching on the breadth of studies relevant to visual art and museology, builds on Marks and Sobchack’s discussion of the body’s capacity for sensual, embodied and prioceptive engagement and argues that the circumstances that influence the interpretation, reception and perception of art are constantly shifting. By referring to my own research-based photomedia projects that examine the nature of experience in a number of cultural institutions in Europe this presentation will not only address the complexity of viewing art, but also demonstrate that creative research, as a rigorous, reflexive and critical practice, productively contributes to knowledge in an academic context.