By attempting to understand the subterranean structures of the planet and how they modify its surface features, Kircher could be said to have
exhibited a «planetary»
consciousness three centuries before the Gaia hypothesis proposed that we look at Earth as a giant self - regulating system.
The Wadsworth Atheneum's «Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861 - 2008»
exhibits a multitude of objects — paintings, statues, films, music, drawings, photographs, comic strips — all of which are inspired
by Coney Island, an American landmark which has captivated the mind of the public
consciousness for over a century.
[2] Despite this historical highlighting of artistic unselfconsciousness, the field of outsider art presently
exhibits an intense self -
consciousness about defining its roots and basic nature, as evidenced
by the 2015 Outsider Art Fair's published explanation of its origins: