ABSTRACT
On display within Frank Auerbach: London Building Sites 1952–62, an exhibition held in the Courtauld Gallery, London, from 16 October 2009 to 17 January 2010, was a black painting. This chapter discusses two digital methodologies for tracing perceptual engagements with Shell Building Site: Workmen under Hungerford Bridge and the Auerbach exhibition more broadly. The first involves an eye-tracking device that records viewing patterns in relation to a particular image. The second is an original digital methodology for tracing the movements and observations of visitors as they progress through exhibitions. Scenes of activity and invention, in Auerbach’s work it is possible to connect the theatre and the building site as places of performative practice and production. The Shell Building site was, in particular, Auerbach describes in interview with curator Barnaby Wright, ‘so superb in itself that could have taken it and put it in a museum’.
