Space Between: Landscape, Mindscape, Architecture

Dear Colleagues,

We live in an age of increased connectivity and yet sporadic physical contact between individuals or communities living as distinct archipelagic entities. These entities are like the knots of an embodied, living neural network transmitting input and receiving output from one corner of the globe to the other. Whether individuals and communities understand themselves according to the archipelagic metaphor or the neuronal one, they are endowed with thoughts, languages, imaginaries, and action plans, that together give a multifaceted shape to the space in which we live. The space we share with other kindred individuals is part of a common cultural heritage, just as the space which separates us from remote communities living around the world may also become a sign of what lies between us and holds the promise of undisclosed parallels.

The engrained cultural practices, philosophical ideas, and psychological resources we derive from inhabiting a territory and passing on our experience and knowledge to future generations through arts, crafts and technology define our identity and relationship to other communities around the world. These practices, ideas, and resources, in fact, are not in the exclusive possession of a nation, nor of a single individual. They delineate, instead, the realm of the possible, in which encounters, disagreements, and understanding of something or someone very far from us can happen. For centuries people in East Asia and in Europe have had a symbolic relationship with objects and environments which shaped their identity and their sense of belonging. These patterns of thinking and artistic practices have evolved through the ages but have always remained closely linked to the sense of local identity, shaping the dialogue between Oriental and Western societies and the transformations which occurred during the modern period. 

This Special Issue is devoted to the interdisciplinary exploration of the connections between space/landscape and mindscape/culture and between the natural and the spiritual resources of the environments we inhabit at a time of climate change and global energy crisis. Contributions are invited on the spiritual patterns and innovative artistic practices emerging in insular environments such as Scotland, Japan, and China, in order to determine what influences and exchanges have taken place and how these have informed the creativity and resilience of different nations.  The archipelagic (and neuronal) layout of a specific natural environment, and its interactions across time with its continental neighbors and islandic nations across the globe, can be looked at through a trans-disciplinary lens which combines the expertise of practitioners and researchers in the visual and performative arts, text/image studies, perception studies, cinema and media studies, musicology, design, museum studies, VR, neuropsychology, human-centered AI, and architecture to tackle global challenges.

Manuscripts submissions to this Special Issue are invited in any area of modernist, avant-garde or post-modernist literary and artistic practices, performance and visual arts, as well as spiritual and philosophical conceptions and emerging cross-cultural phenomena which can be said to reflect the ongoing dialogue between China, Japan and Scotland, and the way archipelagic cultures have filtered and reappropriated the Western European and the East Asian traditions. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• The connections between the Glasgow Style and Japanese traditional art and architecture;
• The modern and contemporary configuration of architectural and communal environments;
• The place of ritual, artistic or utilitarian objects in each culture;
• Kenneth White’s geopoetics movement;
• Tetsuro Watsuji’s notion of betweenness (aidagara);
• The influence of Nô theatre on modern and contemporary theatrical performances and mixed media installations in Scotland and the Scottish isles;
• The case of avant-garde trends and the syncretism of cultures;
• Creative responses to catastrophes and traumatic events such as the First and the Second World War, the Sino-Japanese war;
• The contemporary approach to museum and art gallery design;
• The parallels between Japanese and Scottish traditional islandic arts and crafts;
• The avant-garde creative reconfiguration of conventional exhibition spaces through transdisciplinary curatorial practices;
• Virtual social interactions, space and the use of AI in addressing global health challenges;
• Impact of transnational mobilities from and to China on literature, arts, cinema, and the humanities in general

Dr. Ramona Fotiade
Dr. Andrea Sartori
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• avant-garde or post-modernist literary and artistic practices
• performance and visual arts
• spiritual and philosophical conceptions and emerging cross-cultural phenomena