The Aesthetisphere:

The Aesthetics of a World Culture Fusion

(Continued)

The affect of mass, instantaneous information on the human psyche is as much a part of the equation as is quantum metaphysics and the psychology of adjustment. To explore the mind's ability to devote itself to one culture and one thought is to find an expansive history of adaptation and evolution based on intervening entities and cross-cultural contamination throughout the known past of humankind. Biological adaptation has provided a primary means to survival for organisms of many kinds, but humans have taken adjustment to a higher level by incorporating cultural adaptations.

"All living creatures face a fundamental problem in common - that of survival. Simply put, unless they adapt themselves to some available environment, they cannot survive. Adaptation requires the development of behaviors that will help an organism use the environment to its advantage...early hominids began to rely more on what their minds could invent, rather than on what their bodies were capable of... The consequences of this are profound. As evolving hominids unconsciously came to rely more on cultural as opposed to biological solutions to their problems, their chances of survival improved...Moreover, the tools and techniques that made this new way of life possible made our ancient ancestors less vulnerable to predators than they had been before...Because culture is learned and not inherited biologically, its transmission from one person to another, and from one generation to the next, depends on an effective system of communication." (Haviland)

The system of communication for the twenty-first century is the Internet. It enables the world to access the necessary tools to create art beyond the scope of ones own back yard and embraces the multitude of imagery and ideas and brings them together in a twelve to twenty-seven inch frame for the perusal of many and the contemplation of a few. The transactional communication is an ongoing process unfolding with each attempt to expand beyond the scope of cultural perception into the multidimensional atmosphere of visual and verbal expression. The answers to an aesthetic culture are to be distilled from the primordial ooze of binary information swimming in the cosmic juice of cyberspace. The phenomenon of how that communication affects art and culture on a global scale is the Aesthetispheric Response and the environment it creates when explored by the inquisitive artist is the Aesthetisphere. ###

Bibliography

Lee Anderson, Schooling and Citizenship in a Global Age: an Exploration of the Meaning and Significance of Global Education (Bloomington, Indiana: Social Studies Development Center, Indiana University, 1979)

Barbara Boyer, Cultural Literacy in Art: Developing Conscious Aesthetic Choices in Art Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1987)

William A. Haviland, Cultural Anthropology: Seventh Edition (University of Vermont: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993), 86