What is aesthetics..?  This is a question that has deeply disturbed me, and not necessarily in the negative.  It troubles me because of its simplicity in intricacy.  Aesthetics is seemingly a very base ideal for finding or appreciating beauty and yet beauty is found in the eye of the beholder.  It is from our very own perspective that beauty is found;.  Through human eyes, aesthetics – like any other language device – becomes a very complex subject and as such transforms into a process of inquiry.  I am troubled because this inquiry or philosophic aspect of aesthetics is often overlooked; the word itself often being thrown about carelessly to invoke an artist’s style or look.  It becomes a word of art, to be an artist is to at some point invoke aesthetics.  Even the sound of saying aesthetics is phonetically pleasing to hear, aes-the-tics it just rolls out nicely.  Thus aesthetics itself could be argued to be aesthetically beautiful to the ears. 

 

     So, what is aesthetics..?  It is a question that continuously ponders; beauty that beckons inquiry.  I feel I will never truly understand aesthetics, but that is okay.  I’m sure aesthetics would be delighted in being mysterious.  In essence, I believe aesthetics to be constructed time and time again by us, those that behold.  Aesthetics is… our touch on the world and the world is very vast and awe-inspiring.  I am disturbed by aesthetics; troubled from its over-use without abandon and knowing, yet tickled by its complexity in its simple nature.  This is my aesthetics story…

 

     As I have stated, and will most likely state again, aesthetics is intricate in its simplicity.  I believe its notion to be simple, to be basic, is illusory.  Aesthetics uses its ‘ease of use’ to glaze over our eyes; the illusion hides its ‘true’ nature.  Aesthetics claims to be an answer, when in reality it is a question.  This is the simplified form of my aesthetics story: answers are easy, questions are hard.  Nothing beats a good question in my opinion.  Answers become easy if the question is easy; an intriguing question elicits an intriguing answer, and so on and so on...  The question begets the answer.

 

                                                                                              Aesthetics to me is the ?

 

     There is a dynamic quality to the question mark.  There is so much to be said in its base form, yet its design is far from plain.  The period is simple and poignant – a statement and nothing more.  The exclamation point gives the period excitement and vitality, yet again it is a statement; an easy answer only louder, a straight line to the point!  The question mark is humbling in its frankness, its form bends the mind quite literally and figuratively.  It’s design misdirects the eye away from the point; its curvaceous form captures the directness of a statement but then turns away searching, always searching…  And then it rebounds; returns to the point, and it is here that the world opens up.  Unlike the period and the exclamation point the dot of the question mark is far and away from its effortless pin-prick.  In the dot of the question mark the universe and all of its glory explodes onward and outward. 

 

     There are answers out there, this is true… But the question mark has a unique ability to bring forth the delicate details and connections of worlds both tiny and gigantic, the sublime and the abject.  The question mark brings forth an investigation of all that surrounds us and embodies us, the silent and the boisterous.  It brings forth aesthetics, and aesthetics brings forth more and more questions.  Aesthetics becomes poetic in its inquiry.  There is beauty to be unearthed.  Investigation is our drive for knowing.  Aesthetics is simple.  Aesthetics is complex!  Questions, questions, questions???