Participant Space Spatial Experience between Installation, Art and Architecture

Abstract

This doctoral research analyzes how space can act as an active agent, producing conditions for embodied experience in cultural public spaces. While contemporary artistic practice, especially installation art, has explored space as a condition activated through spatial experience and the viewer's involvement, this research extends this understanding to movement, sequence, and bodily engagement.The project focuses on museums and galleries, where visitors are often framed as passive observers. It examines how spatial configurations activate movement, perception, and decision-making. The research adopts a qualitative, practice-based methodology, in which installations are understood as experimental environments and instruments for knowledge production. This approach enables the exploration of spatiality through conditions such as ambiguity, constraint, and instability, and their influence on bodily behavior.
Through observation, spatial mapping, and comparative analysis, the project identifies patterns of interaction and develops a relational framework. The aim is to translate this knowledge into architectural design principles.

Keywords: perception, installation, participation, movement