Is art objectively identifiable? A shared experience?
Take something not so obvious: Reality TV.
Is American Idol art? And if inclined, on what hypothesis of art are you basing your conclusion.

At the risk of seeming to brag, I watched American Idol (AI) this year. All of it.

In future centuries, art historians may praise AI as an example of fine art from the turn of this century.

But, yes, today, we must be open minded, not only to think so, but perhaps to even consider thinking so.

Before my attempt at a hypothesis of art, accept the simple premise that our Bodies are real beings, aware-ing real sensations, including real inner feelings.

If not palatable metaphysically, then in the spirit of aesthetics, and to enhance the experience of the so-called hypothesis to follow, I now ask you to start with the admittedly controversial premise that The Mind is other than the Body just described.

Mind is not Real. (There is no dualism because) Mind is "happening," but it, what structures the happening, isn’t real. There is only the aware-ing body. And as for Mind, it is a "light show" fleeting and empty of any of the "in itself" "will" "substance" or "being there" that we classically look for. Mind's processes affect reality but is ultimately no "thing" (in itself), there one second, and gone the next.

Using Bodies for infrastructure, energy and feedback, Mind operates a dynamic and autonomous process of construction-then-projection manifesting in loosely Narrative forms as they flow into the incessantly becoming world, competing to occupy the surface.

Mind does so, flowing freely into, and notwithstanding, the seemingly impenetrable boundaries of so-called individual bodies.

Besides infrastructure, the relationship this fleeting empty process has with the Body (reality) are complex. Most relevant here, is that Mind's processes trigger the body to feel and to act in habitually conditioned ways.

The Narratives doing the triggering of feelings/actions have become so rich and complex, our organic aware-ing has forgotten "itself" (that is, Nature, reality: feelings, sensations, movement and drives), mesmerized instead by the light show (emotions, perceptions, seemingly willful action, meaning/desire) triggered by the projections as Narratives.

Now Mind is the thing we identify as (I/me), are most familiar with, and take to be real. The fleeting empty representations constructing a moving story, has displaced with made up Narratives and the Subject, our real consciousness' attunement to reality, I.e., to being doing (presumably, like every other creature).

Mind is not reality.

Mind is, at best, reality, once removed.

Art is "lower" in the "hierarchy of truth".

Art is Mind, once removed; reality, twice removed.

And yet, like Mind, art triggers reality to feel/act.

Go figure. Premises or not. Art triggers the Body to feel/act.

Art is an expression of Universal Mind, a re-construction-then-re-projection of the Narratives of larger loci-in-History.

Art is an expression of an individual mind and its unique micro-loci-in-History. We see someone’s yet-to-surface Narrative re-constructed-then-re-projected.

I submit, specifically, here, that you can see these expressions, Universal/Individual in any form of art, no matter how so-called plastic, rudimentary or crude. But that's not why AI is art.

I am impressed with AI as art, outside of the veil of a commercial enterprise or competition.

I'll give brief observations about its aesthetic qualities, but the ultimate argument for its "value" as art, consists in one highlighted sentence below.

AI is not, as some may prejudge, too one-dimensional. Unlike many other forms of art, it breaks the fourth wall without a comedic pretense, and presents its Fiction subtly enough to make us "believe," despite our better judgment, that it is just fourth wall all the way down.

Whereas finding layers in other forms of art require the viewer to speculate. AI directly represents the layers of projected experience, from raw reality (very rare) to mind/becoming (also rare); and finally, to the fictionalized version of both, a "becoming" of becoming.

Yet it is still stylish (within its medium and genre) and surreptitious enough to engage the viewer in a juggling of these layers, as well as digging deeper for hidden constructions. The 'fashion' in which it does this, is what allows the open-minded spectator to transcend AI's vulgarly exploitative commercial exterior, look around, and breathe a deep sigh of relief.

I know little about TV production etc. But the "producers" have masterfully weaved beautiful voices and living personalities, with Fictional representations of both the vocals and the personalities.

The finished product is presented with all the hierarchical layers of truth, fiction and fictional fiction directly, and indirectly; in segments, and all at once.

Most pleasing to the art lover, is the accessibility of latent bits of reality (in the form of real bodies) teasing viewers to fish them out between gaps generously afforded through cracks disguised as poor editing; or, as Derrida might have, to infer glimpses of the so called real being and it’s so-called real Narratives between the staged production, in the silence, omissions, errors, and erasures.


But none of that is why AI is art.

What is art in the context of this process of construction-then-projection?

Since we have prohibited it from being any absolute or immutable truth or thing in itself, then for the framework of this hypothesis, art must serve a function. Like anything projected, art must serve the organism, for better or worse.

I think we commonly say, art inspires us to do something, or it makes us feel emotions.

For me that can be shaved down to the organic reality. Art triggers real feelings for our Bodies, as I mentioned above.

This triggering of feelings from art (unlike other forms of projection) happens so directly and often powerfully, that it allows for real consciousness, independent of mind, to attune to the feeling before such feelings reproduce a new set of constructions to override them.

In other words, through art, you really get to feel something before it gets displaced again by emotions and other constructed-then-projected meaning evolved to trigger action or choice.

Sometimes, you hear your first projections as the whisper, "I don't get why I'm crying?". These "just real feelings" are often expressed in tears or laughter, but rage, fear, drive, human bonding. A trigger far removed from reality, yet able to have created a direct path thereto.

Art triggers real feeling, along with a momentary glimpse into the real being feeling. Like Zazen purportedly does; or deep single-focused prayer or contemplation.

For me, unashamedly, AI has triggered not one, but from time to time, all of those direct paths to real feeling (tears, laughter, rage, fear, drive, human bonding). And that is why it is high quality art. Art Extraordinaire.

I'm not sure why I'm expecting resistance. It must be the "cheap" Narrative regarding Reality TV that we all cling to.

But ignore everything I just said, if you prefer. Forget the premises, even the hypothesis, since it's constructed and projected anyway.

I want to know what you think period, if at all.

Here's the simple question repeated.

Is American Idol art? And if inclined, on what hypothesis of art are you basing your conclusion.