Embodied Cognition and the Limits of Digital Museum Experience

Abstract A museum visit is a life event, which can result in an array of experiences that its digital counterparts are not able to reproduce. Museum topographies reveal themselves through our encounters with them. The knowledge we gain is connected to physical locations and things, stored as scenarios and registered as whole events. The context of embodied and situated cognition provides a strong and thought-provoking argument for experiencing real-life museum spaces. What embodied cognition theories suggest is that the restricted use of our bodies might result in profoundly altered, limited forms of cognition. Online interactions increasingly force us into modes of thinking which rely on eye-based absorption of the mimetic language. The non-linear events and tapestries of real-life experience are replaced by ‘eye-screen cognition’, spatial inertness and disconnection from the modes which most likely play a crucial role in our cognitive processes. Without dismissing the obvious benefits of online presence, like reaching new audiences and connecting databases and thus creating new research opportunities, I would like to argue the case for the in-person museum visit, using specifically the theories of embodied experience and examples from my own lived experience. Embodied cognition theories indicate that we think as embodied agents, and depend on sensorial input to support our understanding, formation and retention of concepts. Embodied cognition in the museum context can help us better understand and appreciate the spectrum and complexity of our perception processes, the meaning of an impactful event and the richness of our living experience.