How do we look at and experience art in the digital age? How do we document our experience of seeing art?

This series #ArtLover, investigates how visiting a gallery has transformed viewers from a reflective mode to an active photographic documentation of the experience.

Our mobile phones have become the ultimate arbiter of reality. We attempt to preserve important moments and experiences through making a photograph. But does this act bring us closer or does it distance us, seeing the world through the small screen?

This process was particularly highlighted for me when I visited the Louvre galleries during a busy Summer day. The Louvre averages almost 8 million visitors a year and often up to 30,000 people per day. There is a fevered tone to those who arrive at the galleries!

While moving through the galleries I became increasingly curious and fascinated by my fellow art lovers who were busily processing the experience with their phones.

We no longer seem to trust our own senses to remember important events - or culturally sanctioned important experiences such as seeing the Mona Lisa – and must use our phones to capture evidence for us to review at a later date. It is an irony that photographing can create a ‘photo-taking impairment effect’ where relying on technology can reduce our ability to remember the event.