Spence studied art linked to bodily sensations. He shares that “In recent years, there has been something of an explosion of interest in those artworks and installations that directly foreground the bodily senses [often referred to as proprioceptive (or prop.) art]. . . . The entertainment/experiential element of such works cannot be denied, especially in an era where funding in the arts sector is so often linked to footfall. At the same time, however, a number of the works appear to be about little more than entertainment/amusement. One might wonder why such ‘edutainment’ should be placed in the art gallery rather than, say, in a museum of science or illusion. Nevertheless, in the best cases, the foregrounding, or removal, of bodily sensations that proprioceptive artworks deliver can potentially help to connect people in an increasingly digital, online, mostly audiovisual, and hence in some sense disembodied contemporary existence.”
Charles Spence. 2022. “Proprioceptive Art: How Should It Be Defined, and Why Has It Become So Popular?” i-Perception, vol. 13, no. 0, pp, 1-22, https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695221120522