Alexandra Victoria Alvarez is a MSc of Psychology of Art, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity from Goldsmiths University of London. She completed her undergraduate degree in Art History and the Science in Society Program at Wesleyan University. Currently she is a Research Assistant for an FWF funded project in collaboration with the Belvedere Research Center, University of Continuing Education Krems, and the University of Vienna. Concurrently, she is a PhD within the EVA and Artis Labs.

The Texas native has over 15 years of work experiences within museums galleries and art institutions, nearly 30 publications of art reviews and exhibition text in New York, Mexico, Paris, Dubai, and Texas, and has curated and coordinated exhibitions ranging from opera performances, retrospectives, contemporary art pop ups, to Art Basel and Frieze booths. Her neuroaesthetics research work focuses emotion sharing between artists and viewers, cognitively backed curation, and the aesthetic experience within original, digital, and VR settings and she is often collaborating with contemporary artists and museums in her investigations. She has presented research in posters at VSAC, DIV10, and IEAE.

Her FWF funded investigation looks at seven artworks from the Belvedere’s modernist collection in four different contexts: origional, digital, augmented reality, and virtual reality. The study includes mobile eyetracking and both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate Walter Benjamin’s concept of the “aura” and is a transdisciplinary approach to characterize and taxonomize the aesthetic experience within a post digital society.

As a PhD Student her repertoire has a keen focus in the affective and cognitive responses of viewers when engaging with contemporary artworks and exhibitions. Inspired by Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation, Alvarez is researching how artists transmit intended emotions to viewers across different contexts and the psychological profile of individuals that are better able to feel what the artist is feeling. The aim is to enrich the conversation of what is being changed, transformed, maintained, amplified, or lost when an artwork is reproduced in different modalities.

Outside of the lab, Ava runs a publication and fashion brand where she investigates art exhibitions, admires science, probes at feelings, and produces bespoke soft garments. She is also a fashion model, performance artist, and general public intellectual.