Reading: “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin
Before arriving to class, I found this reading rather confusing because the language Benjamin uses is very technical. I find it insightful to hear what my peers understood of the work as it clarifies my own reading of the work. The biggest takeaway from this reading was the changing relationship between art and the viewer and, although Benjamin is writing of his experience in the 1930s, his observations about technology are still relevant today.
The first conversation from class that I would like to address concerns the following quote from Benjamin; “the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” There are two opinions that arise from this concept of originality and authenticity; recreations of an original work of art does not hold its value or the value of art is in the viewer not the authenticity of the work. I agree with the latter and provide the example of historic castles holding original works of art that were unappreciated by its occupants. The other perspective, as argued by my peers, states that the reproduced art cannot have the same value because the aura of the original is not replicable. While there is no correct answer to this question, the conversations in motivated were very enlightening.
The other topic introduced by Benjamin is the influence of technology, both from the
1930s and the 21st century, on the relationship between art and its viewer. He supposes that “[the camera] permits the audience to take the position of the critic, without experiencing any contact with the actor.” We expanded on this idea during class with the example of live theatre versus recorded theatre. During a live performance, the audience is more likely to silently enjoy the art in front of them, but when we view it from the comfort of our own television, we are more likely to criticize the art harshly. This conversation introduces new complexities to the relationship between originality, authenticity, and value.
Hi Saffron!
ReplyDeleteIt was great to read your insightful post, especially as I think we see from similar perspectives regarding the ideas that Benjamin discusses of aura and authenticity and our personal views about how we might assign value to these works as individuals. Though his essay focuses on the mentality of the masses and cult value vs exhibition value, I’d like to think that Benjamin conceived aura through both an individual and collective lens, and that—especially if he had a peek into our current age of technological innovation, social media, and shifting media forms—he would emphasize that, though a piece of media's authenticity may not be reproduced, its aura now has the vast ability to take on new meanings and values—which is not always a strictly positive thing. This is especially the case, in my opinion, when you look at how memes have disseminated through the digital landscape.
We touched on this briefly in class when we discussed structuralist and post-structuralist theories, analyzing Barthes’s conception of the myth and its application to our current mediascape. If we were to use the langue of both of these theories (Barthes’s post-structuralism and Walter Benjamin’s reproducibility theory), we could say that myths born from specific points and places in time—you could use oral narratives for historical examples, but in more modern (or postmodern, I should say) times a good example would be the meme-ing of Donald Trump after he bragged of his success, despite his father only giving him “a small loan of a million dollars" (see this helpful visual: https://www.mouthporn.net/site/imgflip.com/i/y2r43)—often have meanings that are tied to those specific points in time and cannot be easily transmitted to others beyond that space and mentality.
In our age, myths such as the one exemplified by moi have an even more intangible aura, which I believe is maintained in a temporal sense that calls upon the transmission of ideology and relevancy rather than the myth’s authenticity due to the fact that they are readily reproduced and re-disseminated all around the internet. Thus the meaning and value of these reproductions certainly changes, but, in some sense, the aura can still be maintained so long as our shifting cultural interpretation remains with the image object, as authenticity is out of the question—the original is no longer strictly original. This is part of the reason I find NFTs so fascinating (and frustrating), because—and I think Benjamin deserves a lot of credit for predicting this—humans have then still found a way to commodify such an abstract and seemingly valueless mythology by individualizing it for a generation of people that are focused on individual value. And, who knows—maybe that in itself is a sign of a poplar cult-mentality.