Postmodern Perspectives on Art and Reality

Is it enough for one to utter "I could do that" for a piece of artwork to be categorized as non-art? We, as a people, possess an undeniable predisposition to designate certain art as deficient in terms of its artistic or aesthetic quality. But what makes something art? Can art have thick and tumid margins through which one can categorize it as worthy of a wall in a museum or an exhibition?

Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, 2019. Via Wikipedia.

One and Three Chairs by Joseph Kosuth, 1965. Via MoMA.

Postmodernism, as a state of constant equivocation, is an amalgamation of everything that has ever reigned prior to its emergence, since it has a certain tendency towards incertitude against both that which it reacts to and itself as a whole. However, a searching mind must first grasp the nuanced, but rather necessary, thin but unmistakable red line between postmodernism and postmodernity. Postmodernism is, in its essence, a perpetual skepticism and refusal in the face of grandiose holism, its singularity, and rigidity. The latter is the container in which it dwells in terms of history and socioeconomic conditions.

Now that the mandatory and preliminary, although rather short, preface is done, we can start questioning the questioning of art. Frederick Jameson, a Marxist literary theorist, argues that every aesthetic act, endeavor, or penchant is bound to bear an ideology. Postmodern art, seemingly subordinate to the highbrow expectations of aesthetic anxieties, aspires to mean that meaning, or rather, a unified meaning, is no longer a prerequisite of postmodernism, owing to its historical, societal, and cultural rumination.

Postmodern literature, much like its peer, art, has a palpable aversion to the practice of unifying stories, the absolute truth, or totalizing discourses that reflect a generalized human experience. Collective political stances of the working class transitioned into body politics, where every political endeavor was linked to the other, and the subjective experience of the individual was the core pillar. This meant that the literary author created different discourses, Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, thereby fostering relative truths yielding relative conclusions.

Interior Scroll by Carolee Schneemann, 1975. Via The Collector.

Amazing. Great. So, postmodernism has room for and celebrates relativeness and subjective experience. Then, how does AI relate to this discourse of truth and reality? Well, it is closely related to the postmodern perspective on the subject and its presence. Postmodernism situates the body on the forefront of the essentials aisle at the nearest convenience store to you. The mind is not a forerunner in the non-existent contest of body and mind but is an intrinsic entity, a non-negotiable to the body as a whole. Meaning, that you are not 'are' because you think, but because you are. Makes sense? Good. In this regard, AI’s artificiality is not a focal point of conversation, although its intelligence definitely is. Descartes’ approach grants AI a certain kind of existence in a certain kind of reality since the mind comes first to the body, and having a cognitive ability is the primary prerequisite of being. AI, in this sense, ceases to provide 'real art' since it is the amalgamation of all art that has ever been fed to the World Wide Web, and its consciousness is one of artificiality. But, then again, at this specific point in this article, one should remember the opening question: What makes something art?

The Uncanny Failures of A.I.-Generated Ads. Via The New Yorker.

This perspective requires art to have a quality check before the little square next to it is marked with a black pen on the column of 'art,' which is to examine if the one holding the brush is in living, breathing flesh, or whether they have human intelligence. In a postmodern sense, then, this approach also provides a half-hearted solution to the realness of AI art, since postmodernism renunciates itself by looking for an ideological stance that stems from the artist and their perspective. Because AI feeds off of certain data collections on the internet, it is a soup of ideologies and perspectives, a cursed mosaic of hell and beyond. Whether AI is real art or to what extent its reality is accepted is a debate of our day-to-day presence, and so is high art.

Walter Benjamin, a key figure in the Frankfurt School, emphasized that art, original art, has a distinct aura that is also intricately related to the artist themselves, and once the original art is reproduced to the masses, its aura is threatened via the possibility of democratized art. So, the highbrow could experience a certain satisfaction upon interacting with or witnessing the original art. However, when it is populated and distributed throughout the classes of people, its value diminishes since it loses that core aura attached to the original piece via reproduction.

Walter Benedix Schönflies Benjamin circa 1928. Via Wikipedia.

As can be deduced from this text, postmodernism situates itself in the utmost pandemonium of reality. All perspectives mentioned in this article, by nature, are welcome, with a certain incision between the lines of subject and community, as well as relativism and unity. How we, as a people, to circle back again, should perceive art is solely relative. Each and every single one of us generates an inherently different reality. Consequently, postmodernism celebrates its consensus on the significance or, rather, the inevitability of relative experience; it also, in doing so, contributes to an accepted and agreed unanimity, which in turn, challenges postmodernism which naturally promotes postmodernism right back. It is an enigma that has a routine. A catch-22.

To think about oxymorons and dualities is to think in riddles and quandaries that blink a fluttery lash gesturing a solution but having the solution be a master shapeshifter, a mischief. Postmodernism reigns as a paradox that adds to and subtracts from itself while incessantly self-reflecting. It is postmodernism’s nature to contradict itself while agreeing to its utterances. All in all, it must be a Gemini sun, moon, or rising.