MOAS ICS2024.1
The MOAS project (ICS2024.1) aims to contribute to improving the contribution of art to the development of citizenship in democratic societies through a study of the experience of the art spectator that serves to update artistic, curatorial and mediation practices in museums and art institutions.
The project is proposed for a two-year period (September 2024-August 2026) and includes theoretical research , case programs of study and an experimental phase in which the data generated will be examined using qualitative methods.
Objectives
1
To understand what kind of experience it is to be a spectator of a work of art, describing some of its possible forms.
2
To define the personal conditions that make it possible to occupy the position of spectator in the nexus of agencies that form art (Gell, 1998).
3
To determine what institutional conditions allow the deployment of this type of experience and which hinder it.
Hypotheses
Aesthetic experience
The reception of a work of art is a particular type of aesthetic experience in which ludic pleasure and the capture of noetic elements in an artifact are intrinsically united.
Relational condition
Art reflects the human condition in its original relational quality. The artisticity of a given work is given and constituted in its reception by the spectator, the one can who can understand its value.
Regeneration of subjectivity
The experience of art brings into play and develops aptitudes that allow self-discovery as a subject of experience and encourage the regeneration of subjectivity. This fact gives art its peculiar "political" character. Art institutions can encourage or veil this character.
Team
Between 2021 and 2024, Nieves Acedo, art historian and ICS researcher, has made several contributions that address the viewer's perspective. In 2021, she delved into what Rancière calls the "aesthetic regime of art" in an article in the magazine Daimon, which she summarized in part in the lecture "The aesthetic moment of judgment" given at the workshop Educating in Beauty at the Core Curriculum Institute of the University of Navarra. In 2023, he published the book Transmutación on the performance of the same name by the choreographer Antonio Ruz. The study is articulated following the outline proposed by Alfred Gell, who understands art as a nexus of agencies, and in his texts he expressly adopts the position of "witness" or spectator. In 2024 his contribution entitled "Vivir el arte: hacia una teoría de la expectación artística" (Living Art: Towards a Theory of Artistic Expectation) was published in the graduate bookCuidado con la Estética (Piñero and Cascales eds.).
The research of Inés Olza, linguist and ICS researcher, focuses on multimodal processes of meaning generation from a linguistic, cognitive and pragmatic perspective. She has directed three research and development projects on time representation, interaction patterns and cognitive processes in mediation exercises. His most outstanding work includes the monograph Corporeality and Language (Peter Lang, 2011), in which she addresses how bodily experience is reflected in the conceptualization of language in Spanish. In addition, she has published numerous articles and has made significant contributions to international journals such as the Journal of Pragmatics and Metaphor and Symbol.
Throughout his career, Albert Recasens, musicologist and researcher at the ICS, has combined performance and music management with research. Among his work of knowledge dissemination and knowledge transfer, his concert activity in various auditoriums and festivals stands out, as well as his participation in numerous workshops and seminars, so that his interest in the role of the concert spectator, understood as "experience", is based on his first-person experience, understanding this experience from a first-hand perspective. He has reflected on audience reception in the theoretical field through publications in media such as Management Decision (2013), the report REMA - European Early Music Network (2014), and Managing Cultural Festivals between Tradition and Innovation (2022). In addition, he is familiar with the role of curator for having curated in 2010 the exhibition A Tres Bandas Mestizaje, sincretismo e hibridación en el espacio sonoro hispanoamericano (s. XVI-s. XX), which was presented in several countries and explored cultural interaction through music.
The research of Nathaniel Barrett, philosopher and ICS researcher , has focused on the interactive model of the spectator from the perspective of pragmatism and ecological psychology. His work approaches the artistic experience through the concept of "resonance," which emphasizes the relational and interactive nature of this process. He has explored these ideas in publications such as Enjoyment as Enriched Experience: A Theory of Affect and Its Relation to Consciousness (Palgrave 2023), where he examines enjoyment as an enriched experience. In addition, in the article "The problem of coordination in movement and art"(Ecological Psychology, 2024), he delves into the coordination between movement and art. He has addressed the relational nature of meaning and value in the work "Resonant Experience: An exploration of the relational nature of meaning and value"(Contemporary Pragmatism, 2024).
Javier Yániz, predoctoral researcher at ICS, focuses his work on (disagreement and mediation from a multimodal and cognitive perspective. He has collaborated in two main research projects: "From disagreement to mediation" (MultiDeMe), where he analyzes multimodal patterns in interaction, and in thenetwork Thematicnetwork on conflict communication and mediation" (CoCoMInt), which explores social cohesion. Additionally, Yániz combines his academic interests with the artistic field, making installations funded by the Government of Navarra, such as Energía Eólica (2020) and Cuarteto sin músicos "Fracking" (2021).
Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, art historian and curator, artistic director of MUN, has made significant contributions in the field of curatorship and artistic mediation. In 2018, he was the curator of the 33rd São Paulo Biennial, an edition that stood out for its mediation and participation program, which was inspired by the modus operandi of ESTAR(SER). This group, of which he is a member, promotes care practices, analyzed as a case study in the MOAS project . Previously, as general curator of the 6th Mercosur Biennial (2007) in Porto Alegre, Perez-Barreiro was manager the creation of the figure of the "pedagogical curator". This innovative approach resulted in that edition being known as the "pedagogical biennial", due to its successful artistic mediation program.
Carlos Bernar Borda is the current manager of the "Campus Creativo" program of the Museo Universidad de Navarra, an area oriented to the generation of new audiences in the university environment. Throughout his degree program he has been dedicated to the visual and performing arts and film, which allows for innovative museographic approaches, with a museographic speech and script oriented to the mediation of content and attraction of audiences, as in the case of the Occidens Museum of the Cathedral of Pamplona, the Saxum Visitor Center in Abu-Gosh, Israel, or the exhibition for the Khawla Foundation in the Main Library of the University of Navarra (2024). He is also manager of the museographic script and museography of the Science Museum of the University of Navarra.
The research of Javier Antón, architect and professor at ETSAUN, focuses on the relationship between art and space, paying special attention to the viewer's experience and exhibition design . His work explores spatial immersion through the publication "Interference patterns. Optical vs tactile experiments in spatial immersion, from psychogeography to holograms" (2021). He has also addressed the pedagogy of curatorship and the prospection of the metaverse in the article "Pedagogical prospection of the metaverse through curatorship. Case study of the 1964 IBM pavilion as an example of curatorial pedagogy" (2023). She has also coordinated curatorial projects, such as the CCCP Venice Observatory for the 2014 Venice Biennale.
Carlota Fanjul, pre-doctoral researcher at ETSAUN, is working on her doctoral thesis in the Applied Creativity program, where she studies service design interventions that integrate behavioral insights with creative methodologies such as Design Thinking. Her approach focuses on Username for problem solving and creative idea generation. She collaborates with teaching in Workshop subjects in the Degree of design and is part of the organizing committee of the research congress and workshop iCommunitas at the University of Navarra. Graduated in design (UNAV), with specialization in service design . She has a Master's Degree in Experience design from Username(UNIR) and has experience as a 3D designer and graphic designer.
As a predoctoral researcher in the department of Philosophy at the University of Navarra, Mikel Martínez's research , preparatory to his doctoral thesis , focuses on the experience of art from an ethical and political perspective, starting from ancient Greek thought. In it he explores concepts such as mimesis, beauty and desire to establish a dialogue with contemporary thought.
His interests cover the relationship between Philosophy, poetry and citizenship in antiquity, as well as in the periods of romanticism and the classical avant-garde. She has published several articles and chapters in collective works, and is a member of the International network Philosophy and the City and the research group in Aesthetics and Contemporary Art at the University of Navarra. He has also participated in a curatorial project at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
PhD in Arts and Humanities and Master's Degree in curatorial programs of study from the University of Navarra. Art Historian from the University of Havana. In December 2024 she defended her doctoral thesis entitled, "The phenomenon of participation as a social and aesthetic problem in the Ibero-American context". With an academic and professional career focused on contemporary art from the Caribbean, Latin America and Spain. Her main areas of interest include the living arts, film and socially and politically articulated artistic practices. Her work explores the aesthetic experience and the impact of these manifestations on the public, combining critical analysis with an interdisciplinary perspective.
Art historian, mediator and cultural manager. She has been part of the Public and Community Programs team of the National Directorate of Museums (Argentina), where she has collaborated in the development of exhibitions and programs for different audiences, in coordination with the educational, curatorial and accessibility areas of 24 national museums. She has been a member of the technical board of the Iberoamerican Observatory of Museums and juror in the 12th edition of the Ibermuseos de Education award . She has recently completed a Master's Degree in curatorial programs of study (Museo Universidad de Navarra) and has been part of the curatorial team of the exhibitions "Componer un poema propio" (Feria Arco Madrid, March 2025) and "Querido espectador, ¿qué miras?" (Museo Universidad de Navarra, September 2025-January 2026).