just what is the role of the artist and art these days?

In Marshall McLuhan and Harley Parker's Through the Vanishing Point section called Sensory Modes, just before the main section Toward a Spatial Dialogue has this amazing statement:

Electronic Man (it was first published in 1968!) approaches the condition in which it is possible to deal with the entire environment as a work of art. This presents no solution to the previous problem of decorating the environment. Quite the contrary. The new possibility demands total understanding of the artistic function in society. It will no longer be possible merely to add art to the environment.