For the relaunch of the NeuroArt Nexus, we are excited to welcome Dr. Corinna Kühnapfel to talk about her research into The Role of the Body in Art Experience. This talk explores how art is not just something we see, but something we feel and move through. From paintings to installations, our experiences unfold through the body, through movement, posture, and sensation.
When: 27.04.2026 – 7pm
Where: GAT POINT CHARLIE HOTEL (Mauerstraße 81-82, 10117 Berlin)
Agenda
1900 – Doors, Bar Open
1915 – Event Start. Embodiment practise. Talk.
2000 – Networking
About the Talk
Have you ever noticed how your body changes in front of art?
You might step closer to look at the brushstrokes without thinking. Tilt your head. Slow down. Hold your breath for a second. Or feel a sudden chill, a soft warmth in the chest, or a quiet sense of calm.
This talk starts from a simple idea: these reactions are not accidental. They are part of how art works.
Rather than treating art as something we only interpret visually or intellectually, I explore what happens when we also consider the body. Our experiences with art unfold through movement, posture, balance, and bodily sensations.
Installation art brings this into focus. It does not position us as passive viewers, but requires our presence, participation, and movement. We enter the work, navigate it, and in doing so become part of it. The experience unfolds over time as a sequence of embodied interactions: moving, orienting, sensing, and adjusting. Through this, art becomes something we physically inhabit rather than simply observe.
We don’t only need the body to move from painting to painting or to explore an installation. We also need the body to experience emotion. Feelings are not abstract states somewhere in the head, they emerge through the body, through subtle shifts in balance, breath, and awareness that shape how a work resonates with us.
In moments of awe or wonder, this becomes especially vivid. The body slows down, attention expands, and the sense of self can momentarily soften. These are not just poetic descriptions, but embodied processes through which art can move us and spark curiosity, inviting us to explore further.
By focusing on these often overlooked dimensions, this talk offers a different way of understanding art: not as something distant and purely visual, but as something that happens between body, space, and emotion.
About our Speaker
About Our Speaker
Dr. Corinna Kühnapfel is a postdoctoral researcher at the Arts and Minds Lab, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research investigates emotional experiences with art and their impact on well-being, with a recent focus on aesthetic cognitivism and the emotion of wonder. She currently affiliated with the Research Platform Neurourbanism, where her work examines how public art and urban aesthetics shape perceptions of the city, affordances, well-being, and belonging in everyday urban contexts.
She completed her Ph.D. within the ARTIS project (Art and Research on Transformations of Individuals and Societies) at the University of Vienna, where her dissertation examined how movement, body awareness, and bodily engagement with installation art shape aesthetic experience.
Her background is in Cognitive Science (B.Sc.) and Embodied Cognition (M.Sc.).
She is also a co-founder of EDGE e.V., an international non-profit that promotes collaboration between art and neuroscience through public programs.
