Association of Critical Heritage Studies The Re/theorisation of

Association of Critical Heritage Studies
Inaugural Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, June 5-8, 2012
The Re/theorisation of Heritage Studies’
The politics of affect and a consideration
of emotion and the senses;
Night at museum: the visitors’ experience
A lot of movies and fictional works show us the life of a museum at night, Night at museum,
Belphégor the Louvre’s ghost… but, not many studies have been done on the visitor’s
experience of a museum at night. Nonetheless, more and more cultural events take places at
night, European night of museum, “Nuit blanche” (wakeful night); and more museums have
late opening. In France, most national museums of Paris have what we call a “nocturne”,
word derived from night, that is to say an opening until 10pm or11pm one time a week.
The research I want to present is based on the interrogation of what the socio-cultural practice
of late opening visit, or nocturne, in museums is. We presume that the atmosphere of a late
opening visit is different of the regular one, and thus, the reception of the exhibition.
This leads to one question: is the visitor’s experience different during a nocturne than during a
regular visit and if it is, what is the difference and why?
The research hypothesis is that the context’s changing of the visit (the regular visit is during
the day when the nocturne is during the evening), as a change of light, triggers different
sensations which different interpretations ensue from giving a different meaning to the visit.
This hypothesis involves three conceptual steps which leads the visitors’ inquiry: the impact
of the night and its representations on the state of mind; the perception of the exhibition and
the sensations during the visit; the semiotic which gives access to the meaning after the visit.
This will to assess the different outcomes of meaning goes through the analysis of sensations
and emotions over cognition. A visitor’s inquiry is currently done at the Louvre and prior
results show a difference between the day visitors interviewed and the “nocturne” visitor. The
changes we aim to analyse are not cognitive one, they play on the visitors feelings, and thus
subjective. The emotional part seems to be important for visitors, it is the way they come in
contact with the artwork. According to Genette’s understanding of the aesthetic tradition,
there is two means of access in an artistic relation: the emotional one, sort of first reception of
the artwork, tied with the cognitive one bringing subsidiaries informations, kind of second
reception of the artwork.
The study of the nocturne by the comparison with the day situation has emphasized this
attachment relation between the visitor and the artwork and thus the mechanics of the visitor’s
reception.
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