purposes for art

posted on 2021-07-09

i identify three main purposes people attribute to art; and while no objective metric can place one as ultimately more valid than the others, it is definitely to the third one that i ascribe the most strongly.

artistic instrumentalism: the purpose of art is to help achieve causes. art is ultimately propaganda or, to put it more charitably, is ultimately a way for society to spread and sort values.
artistic hedonism: the purpose of art is to please the person consuming it. this one is the most straightforward and probably the most common purpose for art; people who believe this should have no issue consuming art created by AIs to be maximally enjoyable to them; in fact, they might be hedonists. see also: wireheading.
artistic culturalism: the purpose of art is for persons to embody and communicate an artist's ideas. this could be seen as similar to instrumentalism, but it still values art for art's sake: it sees art as a medium for artists to express an artistic visions with a high degree of freedom, and generally communicate that vision to others. it places a strong focus on the artist, and opposes notions such as death of the author; seeing them as not just part of the context within which a work is to be understood, but in fact the most important piece of such context.

posted on 2021-07-09