Art’s specifically rational act is a reduction of the apparatus of appearance

Evidence

The technological rationality of art seems to be characterized by an aesthetic “reduction”: “Art is able to reduce the apparatus which the external appearance requires in order to preserve itself-reduction to the limits in which the external may become the manifestation of spirit and freedom. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 834

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘aesthetic reduction’ as the chapter’s technical term.
• XREF: connects to: Aboutness reduces art to its topical content, erasing its mediacy — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 304; The demand for transparent, topical art compounds the reductions of calculative reason. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 39

Broader Connections

• Aboutness reduces art to its topical content, erasing its mediacy #complicates (0.78) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 304
• The demand for transparent, topical art compounds the reductions of calculative reason. #complicates (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 39