Hi your question: How does the viewer's knowledge of the process affect their experience with a process drawing? 

 I would suggest you look at Communication Theory. This could be summed up by Lasswell's maxim: "Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect"

There are two basic models: The first and oldest is the Transmission (informational) model which examines the process of sending and receiving messages or transferring information from one mind to another. This model's limitations are that sending and receiving messages sometimes create gaps in communication because communication signs can be perceived differently by different people.  I.e. if you are looking at 'viewer's knowledge' is the viewer of the same culture, education etc. Another process artist would have far more knowledge than someone from outside any of the Western world's art institutions and there is of course a whole series of points between the two positions. 
The other model is the Constitutive model (the process of production and reproduction of shared meaning) I.e. how does someone get to understand the concept process art and what are the signs that allow them to recognize it?
Both of these models have several limitations, most of which are due to the fact that there can be can be gaps that occur in an understanding of the communication process either due to socio-cultural diversity and change or due to the limitations of being able to measure authentic communication between people. Therefore you could use triangulation of several theories to point out problems. Such as 'viewer knowledge' by this what do you mean? Shared cultural understanding or shared awareness of psychological communication. If the latter you could focus on communication as the act of sending a message to a receiver, and assessing the feelings and thoughts of the receiver upon interpreting the message and how these will effect an understanding of the message. This is useful for conducting a deep analysis of the moment of communication. Reception theory could be used to analyse the amount of information any individual might pick up. 
You might contrast this with the phenomenological tradition which focuses on the experience of otherness or dialogues within the parameters of perception: it seeks to explain what is 'real' for the individual as communication takes place. This could be used to argue that there are some things that any human might pick up from a piece of 'process art' without previous knowledge as it will operate as a perceptual experience, however how will this be interpreted by the observer? You might look at semiotics to explain how 'process art' itself can be read as a series of signs.

Some texts you might find useful.

.	Baldwin & Roberts (2006) Visual Communication From Theory to Practice  London: Ava Books
.	Craig, Robert T (1999) Communication Theory as a Field" Communication Theory 9.2. 119-161
.	Curry Jansen, S (2002) Critical Communication Theory: Power, Media, Gender and Technology  London: Rowman and Littlefield
.	Griffin, E (1997) A first look at communication theory. 3rd edition, New York: McGraw-Hill 
.	Littlejohn, S. W.,(2002) Theories of human communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
.	Miller, K. (2005) Communication Theories: Perspectives, processes, and contexts. 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill
.	Werner, E., (1989) Cooperating Agents: A Unified Theory of Communication and Social Structure", Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 2, L. Gasser and M. Huhns, eds., Morgan Kaufmann and Pitman Press
.	Werner, E. (1988) Toward a Theory of Communication and Cooperation for Multiagent Planning Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning About Knowledge: Proceedings of the Second Conference, Morgan Kaufman Publishers, pp. 129-143
.	Witzany, G, (2007)The Logos of the Bios 2. Bio-Communication", Helsinki, Umweb,
.	For Gestalt design see: http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2008/articles/1288.pdf
.	Semiotics for Beginners http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html
 







-----Original Message-----
From: The UK drawing research network mailing list on behalf of Hannah Drury
Sent: Fri 12/14/2012 2:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Dissertation research.
 
Hello Everyone.



I am a 3rd year Fine Art student at Loughborough University. I am wondering
if anyone could give me their thoughts on this question, as it would really
help with research for my dissertation.



How does the viewer's knowledge of the process affect their experience with
a process drawing?



Thank you for your time.



Hannah Drury.


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