Thoughts & Notes - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Walter Benjamin

Thoughts:

I think that Benjamin's viewpoint on the destruction of aura of original artworks due to mechanical reproduction is certainly a valid one. His article was written in 1936 when the influence of mass mechanical reproduction on public consciousness was starting to take effect. From the perspective of 2016, we are so swamped with reproduced images of original artworks, from so many varied sources, that the process is normalised - with the amount of artwork reproduced for advertising and to sell product it is hard to imagine life any other way. When every major exhibition has a gift shop with reproduced postcards, posters, framed prints, key rings etc, it is hard to see how the aura of an original work cannot be affected. But with that said, we still flock to the exhibitions to see major pieces of work. To take home a small reproduction does not seem to have majorly affected the revered original in any way. Benjamin's states:

'To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose 'sense of the universal equality of things' has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction.' Benjamin (1968).

I think that Benjamin's 'sense of the universal equality of things' is the process that is taking place here. The 'aura' around original artworks does have the potential to be destroyed - but it hasn't been. We have become so familiar with mechanical reproduction that we no longer think of it as anything special. If the intent of the work can still be ascertained then it hardly matters if the work is a reproduction or not. In fact when the work is seen in different contexts this can provide new juxtapositions and allow new readings on a piece of work. A Post-Structural viewpoint would be that there are many different interpretations of a piece of art that are dependant on context and knowledge and brought to the image by the viewer. The theory behind Post Structuralism has flourished in a culture that has assimilated original artworks through mechanical reproduction. The process has allowed for a shift in perspective that starts with theorists and is gradually assimilated into mass cultural thought systems.



Benjamin, W. (1968). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Illuminations. New York: Schocken.



Notes:

• The mechanical reproduction of works of art and the art of the film have had repercussions on art in its traditional form.
• The most perfect reproduction lacks the originals presence in time and space because of the unique history to which it was subject, including changes to its physical condition and ownership.
• The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.
• confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded a forgery, the original preserved all its authority.
• This is not so for mechanical reproduction. Two points: 1. process reproduction is more independent. Process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens. Photographic reproductions using enlargers or slow motion can capture images which escape natural vision. 2. Technical reproductions can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach of the original itself.
• The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated.
• Its authenticity is interfered with.
• What is really jeopardised when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.
• "That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art." (Monet tea towels).
• The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition.
• Copies substitute a unique existence for a plurality of copies. (We all experience art in different ways. The art image on a tin of biscuits, a book, a poster.)
• In permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. (Our different contextual experiences.)
• These two processes (process reproduction & technical reproduction) lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition. (The beholder may have no knowledge of the vast tradition of painting when looking at a famous image on a biscuit tin.) (Like knowing bits of Shakespeare without ever having read any.).
• Contemporary mass movements: Their most powerful agent is the film. Its social significance, particularly in its positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive cathartic aspect, that is, liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage.
• During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity's entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organised, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well. (The way art was perceived and painted over time - the vanishing point, perspective. Some cultures do not have words for blue so cannot perceive it.
• Aura - example: if, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life. Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things 'closer' spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. (their?) Benjamin sees himself as not part of the 'masses'. Some 'othering' going on here.
• To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose 'sense of the universal equality of things' has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. (Increasing sense of the universal equality of things!)
• The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.
• Tradition itself is thoroughly alive and changeable.
• Example: ancient stone statue of Venus. Greeks made it a venerable object. Middle Age clerics viewed it as an ominous idol. Both of them confronted with its uniqueness, its aura.
• It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function.
• The unique value of the 'authentic' work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value.
• This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognisable as secularised ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty.
• The secular cult of beauty, developed during the Renaissance and prevailing for three centuries, clearly showed that ritualistic basis in its decline and the first deep crisis that befell it.
• With the advent of the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism, art sensed the approaching crisis, which has become evident a century later. 
• At the time art reacted with the doctrine of l'art pour l'art, that is with a theology of art. (art for art's sake? Modernism? Abstract Expressionism?). 
• Negative theology  - 'pure art' denying social function of art and any categorising by subject matter.
• For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.
• To an even greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. (photographic negative - to ask for the 'authentic' (print makes no sense).
• The instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice - politics. (ritual (religion) and politics are one and the same thing - power and control.)
• Works of art are received and valued on two different planes: cult value & exhibition value. Ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. What mattered was their existence, not being their being on view. With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their product.
• With the different methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to such an extent that the quantitative shift between its two poles turned into a qualitative transformation of its nature.
• By its absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognised as incidental.
• This much is certain: today photography and film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function.
• In other words like the object initially revered for its magical properties that later became thought of as works of art, today's film and photography may in the future have entirely different values placed on them.
• For the entire spectrum of optical, and now acoustical perception the film has brought about a similar deepening of apperception.
• Psychopathology of everyday life - This book isolated and made analysable things which had heretofore floated along unnoticed in the broad stream of perception.
• Evidently a different nature opens itself to the camera than open to the naked eye - if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man.