BRIEF THEORY OF MEANINGLESS ART

A painting, a piece of music, a dance are complex perceptual events.

These events, stabilized as works of art, can be experienced repeatedly enabling us to assimilate complexities we could not master in a single exposure.

Intelligence may in part be defined as the ability to assimilate complex events. Assimilating complex perceptual events though largely a non-conscious process is beneficial and so is reinforced by the pleasure, satisfaction and/or mood elevation we experience when we engage in such behavior.

In a sense the pleasure comes from the process of perceiving and assimilating the work of art rather than the art work itself or any meanings attributed to it by the conscious mind.

The theory describes an adaptive function for engagement with the arts. This basic function of the arts explains why this kind of behavior has been preserved for thirty to sixty thousand years and across all cultures.

The theory also explains how so many different, often contradictory, meanings or interpretations can be attributed to the same work of art. They are a conscious mind's rationale for an emotional response generated by non-conscious processes.

For a more complete version see: What Good is art: an artist's inquiry into the cognitive, emotional and evolutionary basis for art.

-- Anthony Thompson updated 12/10/08