The Embodied Gaze: Exploring Applications for Mobile Eye Tracking in the Art Museum

Abstract

Recent advances in Mobile Eye Tracking (MET) technology facilitate the investigation of visitors’ embodied visual behaviors as they move through exhibition spaces. Our MET-based pilot study of visitor behaviors in an art museum demonstrates the value of MET for identifying ‘hotspots’ of attention. The study also confirms the occurrence of the movement patterns identified by Eghbal-Azar in non-art museums and demonstrates how two patterns—’the Long Gaze’ and ‘Reading’—can be usefully described in more detail. To illustrate this, we report on one visitor’s experience with a single painting, noting the complex embodied visual behaviors associated with gazing and reading. Our findings allow us to reflect on the potential benefits of eye tracking not only for mapping visitor engagement but also for promoting it. In contrast to art museum installations that use static eye tracking as a form of visitor engagement, we argue that MET applications enable visitors to observe, reflect on, and potentially modify, personal viewing practices.

Notes

1 Visitors who elected to wear the eye tracker signed informed consent forms. Visitors who accompanied the subject wearing the MET as well as museum guides were invited to provide formal consent since the MET camera and microphone also recorded their faces and voices. Since it was impractical to obtain the consent of all museum visitors who might be recorded, audio or video material collected from non-consenting subjects has been de-identified in published documents.

2 The device does not function with subjects who wear contact lenses.

3 Although the eye tracker recorded two fixation points on the painting during the scan, it is possible the subject was not consciously aware of the work 25 metres away on the far wall.

4 McMurtrie (2017, p. 85) has a detailed discussion of the implications of label location for visitor experience and exhibition design in his study of the semiotics of movement.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Garbutt

Michael Garbutt, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Art & Design at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where he is a former Associate Dean Research Training, and now teaches spatial design and experience design. His research interests concern the human gaze at the intersection of empirical investigation and cultural theory with particular reference to the art museum. His most recent publications are The Mindful Eye: Contemplative Pedagogies in the Visual Arts and Looking at Looking: Two Applications of a Hermeneutic Phenomenological Analysis of Head-mounted Eye-tracking Data in Gallery Visitation (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2017). Address correspondence to Michael Garbutt, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]

Scott East

Scott East, PhD, is a Lecturer at UNSW Art & Design committed to engaged research with the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) and broader cultural sectors having presented his research in policy, academic and industry settings. Scott completed his PhD at the University of Western Sydney based on an ARC-Linkage Grant investigating the roles of museums in discussions of climate change. Scott’s broad interest is in how cultural and educational institutions figure in broader social networks of rapid change. His research interests include museums and institutions, culture, gender, sexuality, disability studies, queer theory, practice-led research, cultural policy and critical and creative pedagogies.

Branka Spehar

Branka Spehar is a Professor of Psychology at the School of Psychology, University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She completed her undergraduate degree and M.Sc. in Psychology at Zagreb University, Croatia and went on to obtain her PhD in Experimental Psychology at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. She carried out post-doctoral research at the SUNY School of Optometry in New York before accepting a faculty appointment at UNSW. Her research interests include visual perception, attention and, most recently, the perceptual foundations of esthetic experience. She studies the neural mechanisms underlying these processes, how are they affected by varying spatial and temporal context, how they develop in infants and children and how are they are tuned to the statistics and characteristics of natural images.

Vicente Estrada-Gonzalez

Vicente Estrada-Gonzalez is a PhD student in Psychology from the University of New South Wales, where he is doing research in Empirical Esthetics. Vicente’s thesis focuses on the evaluation of gaze behavior which results from art appreciation and how this can be modulated by the context. Vicente holds an MSc degree in Cognitive Science awarded from the UAEM (Mexico) for his dissertation: “Physical features characterisation on paintings of the modern period and their effect on aesthetic judgements”. In 2013, he started an independent curatorial project named México Sensible that organized exhibitions with Mexican emergent artists.

Brooke Carson-Ewart

Brooke Carson-Ewart is Head of Digital Engagement at the Art Gallery of NSW, where she manages core digital activities including online, mobile, apps and in-gallery components. Brooke drives the Gallery’s longer-term digital strategy looking at new ways we can use technology to connect audiences to Art, making it accessible, engaging and relevant. She has worked in the cultural sector for over 20 years, 15 of those building and leading the digital capabilities of two of Sydney’s major cultural institutions, The Australian Museum and AGNSW. Currently she is particularly interested in the intersection between digital and physical spaces, cultivating innovation and experimentation in teams, and change management around digital transformation.

Josephine Touma

Josephine Touma is Manager of Public Programs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where she leads a team of producers who facilitate and enhance visitors’ experience of art. She oversees the Gallery’s annual program of live public events, from talks and workshops to large-scale performances and collaborations with artists and arts companies. She has worked in various roles across education, public programing, research and curatorship in her 13 years with the Gallery, developing engaging live programs and interpretive content, conducting object-based research and delivering talks, tours and workshops. She also lectures and writes across a range of topics in Western art and design history. Josephine was awarded a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Sydney in 2014 for her dissertation “Painting performance: art and theatricality in the work of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721).”