Whay do we ‘Art’?
New Scientist has an article on their website about the 10 Mysteries of you, the strangest things about Humans. One of these things is ‘Why Art?’ and it goes through a few different reasons for why we create art and why we enjoy it.
Darwin was one of the first scientists to posit a driving force for art and likened it to sexual display in birds and other animals. Other researchers thought that being artistic was seen by the tribe as an asset because being artistics goes with being ‘inquisitive’ and being open to new experiences (i.e. being braver) or that a social artistic ‘paradigm’ binds the tribe together. i.e. The tribes identity is reinforced through a shared aesthetic.
It is this last point and a related point to be the most interesting. One of Darwin’s signs of ‘fitness’ was having the excess resources to do something completely useless. e.g. for the Birds of Paradise, cleaning out your ‘showground’ and performing stupid dances is a wonderful way of saying “Look how fit I am, I can do everything I need to stay alive and still have time to dance like a prat!!”. The New Scientist article brough these last couple of things together in order to create an explanation for modern/contemporary art.
Because you have to spend a lot of time learning how to appreciate some of the more eccentric forms of modern art, you are demonstrating how rich you are and hence your social standing. The more time you can spend learning how to behave in the stratospheric society of the contemporary art world, the richer you must be. From a Darwinian point of view, this barrier to entry also forms a social bonding mechanism for the members of the contemporary art’s fraternity. You could also extend this ‘tribal’ society analogy to explain the reasons why the contemporary art fraternity exludes artists and artwork that don’t conform to their social group dynamics. They are basically a tribe of rich idiots 😉
Just a theory 😉
p.s.This tribe thoery may also explain the continuous conversations about technology that some photographers enjoy. They are basically using a shared social structure that allows people to become part of a their tribe. Knowing enough about the technical merits of Canon’s latest optics allows you to join the group, having tested those optics for chromatic abberation yourself gives you enhanced social standing.
3 Responses to “Whay do we ‘Art’?”