Personal Notes on behavior of people in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
DOUGLAS GORDON BLACK BURNS
Large seating spaces allow people to sit and discuss the artwork, but at The black burns exhibit, the seating has been arranged in a way, which looks straight at the main sculpture, ignoring the sculpture heads around it.
The brief about the artwork was not really enough, as there was no refence to the turned sculpture heads on any info graphics in the room, leaving people wondering as to why were the heads turned around. This does not allow people to comprehend the entire exhibit.
Smaller details about the sculpture were not presented well enough, for example the Robert Burns Statue by John Flaxman was commissioned in Bombay (Mumbai, India). Just having this point highlighted, would have brought more Indians to view the statue as they could than relate to it in some way.
People usually spent about 5-7 mins at the exhibit, unless they had a guide. The main focus was on the Black burns statue, and the turned heads were mostly ignored, even those who noticed them, did not really understand why they were turned that way. Very few people actually went to the staff nearby and enquired about the reason for the turned heads.
This was the part of the portrait gallery which prompted most people to click pictures.
GRAHAM MACLNDOE COMING CLEAN
People spend an average of about 10 Minutes at this place, though a few people spent close to 20-25 minutes in this exhibit.
The large font size in this gallery made it a comfortable experience for people to read the content from a comfortable distance, and did not have to go very close to the info graphics as they had to do at most of the other galleries. This prompted more people to actually read the text.
This gallery was one in which most people actually spend at least some time around. Few people spend considerably more time at this gallery, and on enquiring about it, I found that it was coz they could relate to in some way or the other.
I also noticed the time spend in this gallery was not really proportional to age, when compared to other exhibits. Younger people (age grp 20-40) spent considerably more time here, compared to other places. The only people who did not really spend time over here were the kids.
Very few people actually clicked pictures at this exhibit. The ones who did, mostly did it for the information they provided on the techniques of photography.
One other thing I realized though my interviews later was how differently these photos were interpreted by the photographers, they were noticing smaller details in the pictures which I had missed even after visiting the place over 4 times in the week and spending at least 2-3 hours at that particular exhibit.
The audio visual set up and the artifacts from his personal life did not get as much attention as the photos got in the area.
People tend to follow others and watch portraits if there is already someone seeing them.
People started the gallery reading the infographics and spending time on each artwork, but by the time they were art work the frequency decreased significantly, with most people just glancing past pictures, while going into details on a very few occasions.
The area being really compact at spaces did not really help, as people who wanted to read more details about the portraits could not get much time with them due to constant disturbance from people walking by.
By this point most of the younger people were starting to feel a little bored, I found lot of people pulling out their phones, especially younger girls.
The abstract artwork, or the perspectives ones actually attracted more people than simpler portraits.
Older people spend considerable time at this gallery, usually trying to get more comfortable and relaxing while trying to interpret the images.
This exhibit had quite a few pictured being clicked, but they were mostly by tourists.
The painting people normally looked into with more interest, were the ones about which they knew something, I.e. if they knew about the person/place in the painting or the artist.
Time spend in this gallery was spread over a long-time span, few people covered in about 7-8 minutes, while some people took over 45 mins to cover this exhibition.
Why people clicked photos in the gallery? . To list artwork information, to post on Instagram, to prove they were actually at the place themselves.
Abstract and uncommon art forms were more appreciated.
People liked the Architecture and were clicking pictures of the artwork.
People did not always get the context and tended to get bored after a couple of exhibits.
The infographics sometimes caused problems in the circulation of the space.
