silent art

I am sitting here as my computer slowly chugs away at rendering something I am making for an online art project. It has been doing it all day, and it has just recently finished less than a second of screen video. It says I have another 55 hours of rendering time to finish the 5 second clip. This makes me think about art and why people make it. I know that this is only one of the many shots I will have to render for my project, which will maybe make the whole thing which will be less than 5 minutes on screen take up most likely weeks and weeks of rendering. And then... maybe 50 people will watch it in the history of the Internet. So I am wondering about the concept of "art" for the sake of art. That has always been my guiding principle. I wonder if its some "lofty" way to excuse obscurity, or is it really the way I approach my life. Well, enough random blabbering.