Observing, recording, visualising and interpreting visitors’ movement patterns in art museums: A mixed method approach

McMurtrie, RJ

Observing, recording, visualising and interpreting visitors’ movement patterns in art museums: A mixed method approach

McMurtrie, RJ

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Publisher:: SAGE Publications
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Multimodality & Society, 2022, 2, (2), pp. 93-113
Issue Date:: 2022-06

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	McMurtrie, RJ
dc.date.accessioned	2023-07-07T03:07:43Z
dc.date.available	2023-07-07T03:07:43Z
dc.date.issued	2022-06
dc.identifier.citation	Multimodality & Society, 2022, 2, (2), pp. 93-113
dc.identifier.issn	2634-9795
dc.identifier.issn	2634-9809
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/171286
dc.description.abstract	<jats:p> While it may seem obvious that visitors to an art museum move through exhibition space to see exhibits, understanding the corollaries of this movement is less so. Such an understanding requires using various complementary methodologies to observe, record, visualise and interpret visitors’ movement options. This paper is a systematic review of some long-standing methodologies and analytical tools developed within the field of visitor studies and spatial syntax as well as recent ones engendered from theories and concepts of wayfinding, Systemic Functional Linguistics, film and perception. The selected methodologies proved useful in a larger empirical study to account for the dynamic aspect of visitors’ movement patterns in exhibition space. While previous methodologies demonstrated that the placement of objects, particularly labels, influences movement patterns, newer methodologies elucidated that many movement options are not selected by the visitor, resulting in distorted views of artworks. The findings in this paper may have practical implications for curators, who might reconsider their curatorial designs to enable more movement choices and avoid these distortions, and for spatial discourse analysts, who may use some of the methodologies to undertake a finer-grained analysis of the built-environment, one which includes observing users’ movement patterns in relation to seeing. </jats:p>
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	SAGE Publications
dc.relation.ispartof	Multimodality & Society
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1177/26349795221100132
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.title	Observing, recording, visualising and interpreting visitors’ movement patterns in art museums: A mixed method approach
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	2
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
dc.date.updated	2023-07-07T03:07:42Z
pubs.issue	2
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	2
utslib.citation.issue	2

Abstract:

While it may seem obvious that visitors to an art museum move through exhibition space to see exhibits, understanding the corollaries of this movement is less so. Such an understanding requires using various complementary methodologies to observe, record, visualise and interpret visitors’ movement options. This paper is a systematic review of some long-standing methodologies and analytical tools developed within the field of visitor studies and spatial syntax as well as recent ones engendered from theories and concepts of wayfinding, Systemic Functional Linguistics, film and perception. The selected methodologies proved useful in a larger empirical study to account for the dynamic aspect of visitors’ movement patterns in exhibition space. While previous methodologies demonstrated that the placement of objects, particularly labels, influences movement patterns, newer methodologies elucidated that many movement options are not selected by the visitor, resulting in distorted views of artworks. The findings in this paper may have practical implications for curators, who might reconsider their curatorial designs to enable more movement choices and avoid these distortions, and for spatial discourse analysts, who may use some of the methodologies to undertake a finer-grained analysis of the built-environment, one which includes observing users’ movement patterns in relation to seeing.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/171286