Artetik: From the Art

Can art help us to better understand our emotions? Explore how artworks in the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao collection make you feel with this new experiment from Google Arts & Culture

By Google Arts & Culture

Mrs Lenin and the Nightingale (2008) by Georg BaselitzGuggenheim Bilbao

Art can inspire a wide range of feelings in us. From the melancholy of a painting to the awe we feel before a sculpture, researchers have been fascinated by the relationship between art and emotion for many years.

Artetik: From the Art

From October 2022, you'll be able to visit a new installation at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao developed by the Google Arts & Culture Lab. This unique experiment allows you to explore how artworks from the museum’s collection make you feel.

ARTETIK: From the Art

It consists of a digital experience that develops and grows over time, generating a graphic that maps collective emotions.

Artetik: From the ArtGuggenheim Bilbao

By contributing to the experience, you will be guided to new artworks in the collection through an ever-changing visualisation representing the shared emotions evoked in museum visitors. 

Untitled (1952/1953) by Mark RothkoGuggenheim Bilbao

What emotions does Mark Rothko's work arouse in you? 

The Renowned Orders of the Night (1997) by Anselm KieferGuggenheim Bilbao

What about this work, called "The Renowned Orders of the Night" by German artist Anselm Kiefer? 

An atlas of emotions

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, have been researching this very subject.

An atlas of emotions

During this research, 1,300 people described how a selection of around 1,500 artworks made them feel. The research revealed 25 different emotions relating to the pieces, including anger, boredom, calmness, nostalgia, and love.

An atlas of emotions

The researchers used these feelings to create an interactive emotions atlas, grouping together artworks that evoked specific emotions.

Artetik: From the Art

Building on this first interactive emotions map, Google Arts & Culture Lab and the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum collaborated to bring this study to life and – for the first time – create an emotions atlas of a museum's entire collection. 

Artetik: From the Art

This installation organises the artworks based on emotions reported by the visitors. An algorithm called "annoy" is used to quickly find artworks that are connected to similar emotions.

ARTETIK: From the Art

Google’s Arts and Culture Lab facilitates extraordinary, interdisciplinary breakthroughs by bringing intrepid artists and curators together with world-class engineers and creative technologists to foster experiments at the intersection of art and technology. 

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.

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