Art is a virus.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)Like any virus it self-perpetuates, spawning into new territories within its host; the human psyche.
The spawning of a new Artistic piece, or even a new genus of Art-form, takes place when an existing work of Art infects a new recipient, causing, within the mind of this individual, the involuntary production of a reactive idea. This new idea (also known as Viral Artspawn) then germinates within the mind of its new host, until, when mature, it is released into the world, to propagate and survive, as it may.
Like all viruses, Art is in a constant state of evolution and mutation, changing and adapting at all times in response to external influences. The process of evolution by mutation, common to all life on Earth, manifests itself in Art thusly:
Particularly successful mutations will spawn more prolifically than a less successful mutation, by infecting more individual hosts and producing, in turn, more effective Artistic offspring.
Less successful mutations will spawn less prolifically due to a reduced ability to infect new hosts (or an ability to infect only inferior hosts) or by producing inferior offspring. It is uncommon for a less accomplished Art work to survive long, either in its own corporeal manifestation or through successive generations of offspring.
In order to combat the spread of the Art virus, modern society has, as with so many viruses before, produced a vaccine. This revolutionary immunisation is delivered unconsciously through a system known as Mass-Media. It works by starving those portions of the human brain susceptible to infection by Art. These areas of the brain start to atrophy and eventually die off completely, leaving the inoculated host free to wander the world without fear of Artistic infection.
As this painless vaccine is becoming more and more prevalent in our progressive society, the potential breeding grounds for Artspawn are becoming less fertile. It is this Government's hope that, within only a few generations, Mass-Media will reduce the vulnerability of the human mind to the insidiousness of Art and will, in time, render the areas of the brain in which it exists completely barren.
