From Bare to Informed Looking: An Art-Historical Proposition on Mindful Art Engagement, Emotion Regulation, and Cognitive Enrichment in the Age of AI

Abstract

The rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence has unsettled more than the labour market. It has given rise to two related anxieties: an existential unease about human meaning, agency, and uniqueness—“AI anxiety”—and a quieter abdication of critical effort to machines, which recent works call “cognitive surrender.” The remedies most often proposed for these conditions, among them psychoeducation, regulation, engineering ethics, and therapy, leave a conspicuous gap, since none of them draws on aesthetic experience or on the making of meaning. This article, written from an engaged, applied art-history position, proceeds as a conceptual analysis rather than an empirical study. It defines “mindful art engagement” as a receptive, two-phase practice that moves from bare to informed looking, an open and contemplative looking followed by art-historically informed interpretation, sets out its boundaries, distinguishes the three constructs on which it bears (felt meaningfulness, art-historical understanding, and cognitive enrichment), and maps the existing evidence onto its components. On this basis, it advances a hypothesis that such a practice could contribute to emotion regulation and to cognitive enrichment in the age of AI, and that meaning is the point at which the two pathways meet.