What we are up to…
Srestha Chakraborty awarded ÖAW DOC Fellowship by Austrian Academy of Sciences
We are pleased to announce that Srestha Chakraborty has been awarded the ÖAW DOC Fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The ÖAW DOC program is among Austria’s most competitive doctoral funding schemes, with an acceptance rate of 15-20%. We congratulate Srestha on this significant and well-deserved achievement and commend their sustained dedication and scholarly excellence.
At the ARTIS Lab, Srestha’s research examines the prosocial impacts of visual art engagement using longitudinal experience sampling and cross-sectional behavioural methodologies in ecologically valid domestic and museum contexts. Grounded in a decolonial framework, their work investigates how deep engagement with art shapes individual experience and explores its potential to foster connections across culturally and sociopolitically diverse communities.
Read more about the project here.
Jan, 2026
Stephanie Miller successfully defends her Doctoral thesis
Miller’s dissertation “Art Experience Types: Identifying and Applying Shared Patterns in Phenomenal Experience of Visual Art” investigated the broad nature and scope of experiences that people have with visual artworks, by considering what such experiences feel like, and asking if there are shared patterns to the ways in which we experience art. The now official PhD, presented a series of studies, in which in-depth self-reports of emotional-phenomenal art experiences were collected from museum visitors; data were then analyzed via network modeling and latent profile analysis to identify shared response profiles that represent distinct types of experience.
Dec, 2025
The Well-Being of Looking: MacKenzie Trupp on Art Viewing After Defending Her PhD
Fresh from defending her PhD “Examining the Impact of Art Viewing and Appreciation on Well-being” and newly featured in ICOM Magazine’s How We Can Think about Art Viewing in the Pursuit of Well-Being, MacKenzie Trupp invites us to reconsider a deceptively simple question: what actually happens to us when we look at art?
View the article here
Dec, 2025
ARTIS Lab featured in ORF Documentary “Art as Medicine”
Click ▶︎ button above to watch entire documentary
We had a fun time filming our feature in the Austrian public broadcasting channel ORF documentary Art as Medicine, which explores how art can promote health and well-being.
The film follows internationally renowned opera singers Bea Robein and Jennifer Davison, who have spent the past five years leading workshops centered on breathing, singing, and empowerment. “Many people don’t realize how beneficial art can be for them,” says Robein — and she shows this beautifully through practical exercises.
Our collaborative study with the Albertina Museum, fNIRS at the Museum: Investigating the Neural Correlates of Art Experience, featured alongside an interview with our PI Pelowski. Using mobile brain imaging in a museum setting, this study examined the neural and emotional dimensions of art engagement, combining fNIRS data with self-reported ratings of 16 emotions and phenomenal states to capture a comprehensive, nuanced, and ecologically valid picture of the art experience.
Sep, 2025
Field Trip to Yale: ARTIS Attends APA Div 10 Conference
The conference circuit is part of the PhD’s traveling roadshow—equal parts spectacle, performance, networking, and free snacks. From March 13-15, 2025, ARTIS made the academic pilgrimage from Vienna to New Haven for APA Div. 10’s Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts annual conference.
Our team presented research across all tiers of the conference—Pelowski chaired an individual talks session; Angermair, Kim, and Demmer showcased their work in the poster session, each offering a unique perspective on the broader topic of emotion sharing; and Alvarez and Miller delivered a talk on their Div. 10-funded study. Between sessions, we fueled up on pizza, admired Yale’s rare books collections, explored emerging topics such as malevolent creativity in talks by Haniska Kapoor and Roni Reiter-Palmon, and found ourselves especially inspired by the passion and enthusiasm of early career researchers in the Student Showcase.
The conference was both insightful and a strong representation of our diverse and international field. Enthusiasm for our work continues to grow, reflecting a broader societal interest in arts engagement and its effects on well-being and the individual in society. However, beneath the excitement and academic exchange, the topic of funding loomed large. Conversations frequently turned to the challenges of securing grants, sustaining projects, and navigating the competitive landscape of academic research.
Mar, 2025
Creativity and Parkinson's Disease: Blanca Spee delivers Keynote at the 2025 CoBeNe PhD Academy
Blanca Spee delivered a Keynote at the 2025 CoBeNe PhD Academy about her research into Parkinson's Disease: the worlds fastest growing neurodegenerative disorder. Blanca's research is funded by an FWF #ConnectingMinds grant Unlocking the Muse:Artistic Creativity & Parkinson´s Disease . According to Spee, this project aims to systematically investigate this phenomenon. “We focus on both epidemiology and neuroscience, using these insights to develop healthcare interventions. To achieve this, we collaborate with individuals with Parkinson’s, artists, creative arts therapists, and researchers from diverse fields.”
Read her full interview with the UniVie’s CogSci Hub here.
Feb, 2025
The Art of Connection: Investigating the Social and Neural Dynamics of Art Engagement at the Venice Biennale
What happens when art sparks a deeper connection? How do empathic concern, imagination, and emotion sharing shape the way we experience and engage with art? We explored these questions through Anna Jermolaewa’s evocative phone-booth installation at the Austrian Pavilion during the Venice Biennale. Using surveys and mobile neuroimaging, this interdisciplinary research aims to build bridges at the intersection of curatorial practices and neuroscience in the real world.
Oct, 2024
Being Mortal: Investigating the effects of a mortality salient exhibition on prosociality and general wellbeing using a daily diary
At ARTIS lab we are interested in investigating how art exhibitions change how we see and interact with the world. We just completed data collection on a project in collaboration with the Dom Museum Wien. The study, led by Christina Makri, included looking at experiences within a mortality salient art exhibition - that is, an exhibition designed to raise our thoughts, conceptions and awareness regarding death. Being Mortal provides insight on how this type of art experience influences our behaviour and attitudes towards (i) our selves, (ii) other people and/or (iii) nature. Thank you very much to our project partners.