Somewhere between the biological and the creative project lies what you could call “the status project”. The project takes the biological immortality and combines it with the symbolic immortality into a form in which the self becomes the symbol.
The Oppenheimer movie is a perfect depiction of this project. Both Oppenheimer and Strauss are playing this status game in which each man is attempting to become the most powerful/influential man, a role which seemingly culminates as the president. There is a scene where we see the president flex this muscle, but the broader movie is about the power struggle between those two men on what would seemingly be a battle to the top. However Openheimer is portrayed as the protagonist, despite his controversial views (within the context of the country in which the movie was produced) because his position seems, in a convoluted way, associated with a humanistic view of the world as a whole. He seemingly orchestrates a plan which ensures the survival of the communist worldview - or at least leaves the decision up to the viewer.
Point being, this movie is exactly the end game for which his project sought. His symbolic self, the culmination of his experiences, his story (is as much detail as is considered acceptable for the most engaging form of medium) is what will live beyond himself.
In art the symbol which lives on is that of the emotions and thoughts that are evoked by the art itself. The things an observer of art feels are that of common human emotions, which can radiate from individual humans but can never be understood in the context of just the individual.
[thought experiment: limits of life if one only ever met one other person?]
This essence we feel is the taste of Experiential Transcendence, a sense of something we understand that exists beyond what we can see and touch. A concept, such as love, that we know exists because we too have felt it but which we cannot grasp. This is why we yearn for such things, this is the draw to immortality (see Creative Project).
This Status Project is that but more, for with the Status Project the (non physical) symbol with which you are extending is the self. In this sense, fame = art, because both serve as a means to extend something which cannot be seen and touched. Sure, you can see and touch both people and art, but that is not the characteristic of them which is of any value. When art appears beautiful to you, it is the essence of beauty with which you are drawn, not the actual physical medium of the art itself. When you recognize quality in art it is because quality is essentially a capture of time, translated into a physical medium, and time is what we long for. When we spend money on high quality art or jewelry for that matter, what we are essentially doing is trying to associate this capture of time with ourselves. It is another version of the status project for which we attempt immortality not on the merits of our character, but on the symbols with which we are associated with.
[Image: Biological Project is the physical immortality, Creative project is the symbolic immortality, Status Project is the intersection of the two, and Theological Project is the extension of the Status Project beyond the self.]