The Invisible Threads of Song Dynasty Art made Digital and Accessible in Cross-Cultural Domains PhD by Creative Research and Exegesis with the Creative Practice Focused on an MR-based Installation

This practice-led research explores how Mixed Reality (MR) and embodied interaction—augmented by Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC)—can serve as a digital spatial narrative paradigm for the preservation and cross-cultural transmission of Chinese cultural heritage, with a particular focus on Song Dynasty landscape painting. As a form of high-context art deeply rooted in Chinese aesthetics and philosophy, Song painting presents significant challenges for cultural understanding. Drawing upon Edward Hall’s theory of high- and low-context cultures and the framework of embodied cognition, this creative research will design and develop an MR-based immersive installation that reinterprets the poetic symbolism, brushstroke rhythm, and spatial metaphysics of Song landscape painting through interactive, multisensory experience. By evaluating audience responses across cultural contexts, the project seeks to propose a context-sensitive model of digital dissemination that fosters deeper intercultural comprehension while contributing to the sustainable safeguarding and reinterpretation of traditional Chinese art in the digital age.