The Museum Visit. A Thesis on the Relationship Between Museum Display and Audience Behaviour

Abstract

The museum is by origin a highly coded and regulated place. With regard to the specific set of behavioural and moral standards that the institute imposes on its visitors, Julia Noordegraaf argues that museum presentations are based on a ‘script’ that defines the framework of action between the presentation, its designers and its users. All the elements that mediate between the museum and its audience are part of a given set of power relations, which constitutes the ritual structure of the museum.

Today’s exhibition sites are, however, subject to changing aspirations of the museum as a public institute. As visitors are increasingly used to play an active role in constituting an experience, museums experiment with different formats in which the visitor is no longer simply directed. Thereby, both the museum and the visitor are triggered to rethink their role within a reciprocal relationship. Consequently, it can be questioned whether the notion of script is still of relevance in today’s museums of contemporary art. In order to find out, this thesis will zoom in on two case studies whose innovative formats explore the physical and conceptual boundaries of the exhibition space. Thereby, it contributes to the discourse that rethinks the potential use of the physical exhibition space, as well as it examines in what way novel strategies of display can inform audience behaviour.