Theis Vallø Madsen, Tina Anette Madsen
Keywords: Presence, art, atmosphere, phenomenology, multisensory, museums, meshwork, experiment
Presence theory and atmosphere studies are the subject of a three-year research project between Faaborg Museum and University of Southern Denmark. In this paper, the project’s two researchers will present the theoretical framework for analysing the museum as a specific place for presence and atmosphere. Counter-intuitive mapping and walk-along interviews are here used to study the museum as a space where museumgoers move in and out of presence and absence, solitude and social interaction, surface and depth, voids and intensity, or openness and hiddenness. Faaborg Museum is a Danish art museum and a hundred-year-old Gesamtkunstwerk, i.e. a museum where architecture, paintings, sculptures, design, and furniture are created as a total experience addressing the mind as well as the senses.