Category: Benjamin

The massive reproduction of artwork has changed the nature of how an image is perceived by contemporary society. In a short essay by Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the author explains that art has always been reproduced throughout history. However, the extent and methods in which it is mass-produced has changed the aura or authenticity of art; it has altered art’s social relations, historical and cultural rituals, and traditions.
In principle a work of art has always been reproducible but still, mechanical reproduction represents something new, as firstly the reproduction process is more independent from the original than manual reproduction. Secondly, technical reproduction can put a copy of the original into situations, which would otherwise be out of reach for the original itself. However, Benjamin believes that even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.
The presence of the original is indispensable to the concept of authenticity, as authenticity is, according to Benjamin, linked to the essence of all that is transmissible from the object since its beginning and includes all the history that it has experienced. The reproduction, as offered for instance by a photograph, differs from the image seen by the naked eye. Uniqueness and permanence is linked to the second and reproducibility to the first. However, Benjamin does not see this a mere difference between the original and its reproductions, he argues that the “aura” of objects is destroyed by reproducing them. Think of the way a work of classic literature can be bought cheaply in paperback, or a painting bought as a poster. Think also of newer forms of art, such as TV shows and adverts. Then compare these to the experience of staring at an original work of art in a gallery, or visiting a unique historic building. This is the difference Benjamin is trying to capture.

I think even though I got from the text that Benjamin was seeing the loss of an aura as a negative thing, I think that through reproduction the “value” of the original is elevated. Indeed, the whole idea of reproduction, creates a big swift in art. Not only in relation to the work of art (that is not seen in relation to its cult significance but in relation to its exhibitional value) but also in relation to the audience.

In his essay, Walter Benjamin raised an interesting question: what happens to a work of art, or art in general, when it can be reproduced into numerous copies in our technical age? What changes could the technical reproduction bring to the work of art?
To begin with, there is the problem of the original. Once we were able to reproduce a work of art, the once unique and original copy loses its authenticity, as well as its authority. The reproductions hence detach from the tradition and lose the “aura” of the work of art. Of course when he wrote about art in his essay in 1935 Benjamin was thinking about art in a traditional sense, mostly painting. And the art in its tradition is essentially characterized by a ritualistic experience, which is shattered by the mechanic reproduction of art. The reproduction of art can therefore meet the “beholder” halfway, and this has profoundly reshaped the relationship between the work of art and its viewer (or listener). As a result of this change, the nature of art has suffered a transformation as well: it is from then on designed to be reproduced and it is measured by its exhibition values. The reaction of the masses toward art have also changed as a result: from the “reactional attitude” to a “progressive reaction”, a “direct, intimate fusion of visual and emotional enjoyment with the orientation of the expert”(1237). This analysis of the relation between the masses and the culture could be considered the predecessor of Horkheimer and Adorno’s examination of mass culture.
According to Benjamin, film is the form par excellence representing this renewal of art and our attitude towards it. Its ability to reach the public and produce mass audience response, is something a painting fails to do. The film provides a collective experience that happens almost simultaneously and without the hierarchical mediation. And another profound change brought by film, is its representation of the environment surrounding men: “by close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera”(1238), the film extends our comprehension of the environment and introduces us to formerly hidden and unconscious optics in our lives.
This aesthetization of the environment, in Benjamin’s opinion, later extended to the aesthetics of the destructive power of the war and to the self-alienation of humankind.

In this weeks reading I found Walter Benjamin’s text to be very interacting. He starts by talking about the reproduction of art and how there is a difference between the reproduction and the original no matter how similar the two might be there is something missing. He mentions that “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence.”(pg1235) There is something special about the time and space where art is created that is only carried by the original work of art. He later talks about mass production and when referring to this he talks about the lost “aura”. I’m not really sure what he means by aura but in my guess is that special property in the original, related to mystic associated with religious art. I’m sitting here in my room and I’m looking at Vincent van Gogh’s painting “The Cafe Terrace” that is hanging from my wall of course it’s a copy. But what makes it so different from the original? I think that is the direct connection with the painter. Benjamin mentions that “One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence”(1236) mass production removes the aura from the work of art. What is mass production? Photos and movies produced with technology. l is negative about mass production. He later mentions when referring to photos that: “By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects,by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film,on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action.Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices and furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us locked up hopelessly.” This reminds me of what we talked about in the beginning of the course in formalism how arts job is to deafamiliarize what is familiar and this is what photos and films do because they deafamiliarize everyday objects.
One last quote that also captured my attention is when Benjamin mentions that: “The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses” (1239) This is true because even though some optics might be available to us we can’t see it because it is too fast but by slowing the motion something not available to us before is visible similar to psychoanalysis.