I have a lot of sympathy with this article's main point of view, that art has has its roots in the biological evolution of the human species. The author references a book by Denis Dutton - The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution[1] - where Dutton argues that art is an evolutionary trait, and is shaped by natural selection. That book was published in 2010; I wrote a (short) article in 2007 along very similar lines in an attempt to explain why poetry exists in every human language[2] - it's good to find out that I'm not alone in having such an outrageous belief!
The second half of the article, on how computer-generated art fits into the art-is-fundamentally-social equation ... I currently have no definitive opinion on that question. My thoughts on the issue vary on a day-to-day basis between "art without a human creator is irrelevant" and "art happens in the mind of the person who sees/hears/feels it, not in the medium used to present and preserve it". My guts favour the latter opinion, but it would be nice if I could work out a decent argument to support the assertion.
The second half of the article, on how computer-generated art fits into the art-is-fundamentally-social equation ... I currently have no definitive opinion on that question. My thoughts on the issue vary on a day-to-day basis between "art without a human creator is irrelevant" and "art happens in the mind of the person who sees/hears/feels it, not in the medium used to present and preserve it". My guts favour the latter opinion, but it would be nice if I could work out a decent argument to support the assertion.
[1] - the link in the article to the book is broken. The book is available from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Instinct-Beauty-Pleasure-Evolut...
[2] - The Monkeys Who Learned To Sing - https://rikverse2020.rikweb.org.uk/blog/monkeys-learn-to-sin...