Crossing Boundaries on Landscape Cognition and Embodiment

Abstract

When approaching landscape studies, and in order to delve, through research enquiry, into complex socio-cultural, historical, biological and ecological in-terdependencies, the need for an interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange of knowledge among distant disciplines might enlighten new paths of discovery. At present, there is a renewed interest in alternative constructions of the earth, naming mapping, cartographies, and plastic, audiovisual, or performative rep-resentations. As the philosopher Bruno Latour (2018) asserts, the notion of a detached, all-encompassing global perspective of our globe is totally unrealis-tic, needing different grounded and embodied viewpoints to address the com-plexities of our ecological and political realities. Therefore, we are not engag-ing in discovering an earth in its visual and abstract extension but different lands and landscapes under our feet, exploring our embodied senses, and cog-nitive perception in their “intensity”, focusing on environmental and social is-sues, local knowledge and community resilience. Therefore, the most innova-tive research presented at Uncertain Landscapes International Congress (2023) by the archaeologist Felipe Criado-Boado and the visual artist Irene Kopelman proves that we are moving away from abstract discourses towards context-sensitive and cognitive approaches, which include challenging perceptual boundaries, interconnections and innovative insights with other scientific dis-ciplines.