From Baroque to Woke: Eye-Tracking How Labels Guide the Gaze

Abstract

Recently, art museums have become spaces of cultural shift, where traditional narratives are being reinterpreted through socially critical lenses. Labels accompanying artworks, once primarily descriptive, are now revised to address themes such as colonialism, racism, gender, and social inequality. These interventions—often described as “woke”—have sparked heated public debate. A notable example is the revision of artwork collections and reconsideration of naming practices by several London institutions to explicitly address historical injustices such as slavery and colonial power [1].

As museums increasingly adopt woke narratives, questions arise how these changes impact visitors' perceptions and interpretations. Furthermore, it is important to consider how individual differences, such as educational background, cultural capital, leisure habits, and ideological orientation, influence visual attention and meaning-making when engaging with woke descriptions of artworks. Understanding these factors may offer insight into how sociocultural positioning shapes the aesthetic experience. 

Despite a growing discourse on this topic, there is a lack of empirical research investigating the cognitive effects of such interventions in museums. To address this gap, this study investigates how individuals from different social backgrounds visually engage with artworks when exposed to traditional versus socially critical labels. While public commentary often centers on ideological disagreement [1], this research focuses on subtler, unconscious effects of woke interventions on visual attention. Specifically, labels addressing themes such as gender, race, or social exclusion are compared with more conventional art descriptions, that emphasize artistic technique and style, to assess their impact on the viewers' perception.

This study is part of the interdisciplinary project The Museum Gaze (2022–2026), which integrates mobile eye tracking (MET) with multimodal qualitative methods to investigate the production of meaning in exhibition spaces [2]. MET is employed as a key method to record visual attention patterns during museum visits. It is particularly well-suited to capturing subtle shifts in gaze behavior, such as fixation durations, scanpaths, and gaze transitions, that may not be accessible through self-report [2]. To contextualize these patterns with participants’ social backgrounds, demographic and ideological data are collected via a questionnaire. Post-visit interviews are also conducted, in which participants are asked about their opinion on such interventions in cultural institutions. The research is conducted in the Baroque Hall of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, where participants are presented with selected 18th-century artworks under two different label conditions, implemented in two consecutive two-week periods: one using conventional descriptions and the other featuring woke interpretations.

By exploring the relationship between social identity and aesthetic attention, this study offers insights for both cognitive science and curatorial practice. These findings can help museums to predict how diverse audiences respond to interpretive content and develop better-tailored labels for artworks.

References

[1] V. De Souza, “London’s art galleries are becoming more woke – and it’s not going down well,” Evening Standard, Feb. 6, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-art-museums-galleries-woke-b1208095.html

[2] L. Reitstätter, S. Pesen, R. Rosenberg, and E. Kasneci, “Mobile Eye Tracking: Making Eye Movements in Exhibitions Visible,” The Museum Gaze Project, 2025.