Post by Admin on Jan 27, 2015 1:22:05 GMT
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin
The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardised by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardised when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object!
the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions to substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced.
overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction.
Mechanical reproduction is inherent in the very technique of film production. This technique not only permits in the most direct way but virtually causes mass distribution. It enforces distribution because the production of a film is so expensive that an individual can not afford to buy a film, hence, in oder to pay its way, the film has to reach an audience of millions.
The work of art is designed for reproducibility. (digital art has no original since every copy of it is equal? - is there some ontology of flatness to find - the philosophy of art that equalises each object?)
But 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.
note 9. Bertolt Brecht: ”If the concept of “work of art” can no longer be applied to the thing that emerges once the work is transformed into a commodity, we have to eliminate this concept with cautious care but without fear, lest we liquidate the function of the very thing as well. For it has to go through this phase without mental reservation and not as noncommittal deviation from the straight path; rather, what happens here with the work of art will change it fundamentally and erase its past to such an extent that should the old concept be taken up again - and it will, why not? - it will no longer stir any memory of the thing it once designated.”
Painting simply is in no position to present an object for simultaneous collective experience, as it was possible for architecture at all times, for the epic poem in the past, and for the movie today.
Reception in the state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film its true means of exercise. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.
The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardised by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardised when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object!
the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions to substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced.
overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction.
Mechanical reproduction is inherent in the very technique of film production. This technique not only permits in the most direct way but virtually causes mass distribution. It enforces distribution because the production of a film is so expensive that an individual can not afford to buy a film, hence, in oder to pay its way, the film has to reach an audience of millions.
The work of art is designed for reproducibility. (digital art has no original since every copy of it is equal? - is there some ontology of flatness to find - the philosophy of art that equalises each object?)
But 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.
note 9. Bertolt Brecht: ”If the concept of “work of art” can no longer be applied to the thing that emerges once the work is transformed into a commodity, we have to eliminate this concept with cautious care but without fear, lest we liquidate the function of the very thing as well. For it has to go through this phase without mental reservation and not as noncommittal deviation from the straight path; rather, what happens here with the work of art will change it fundamentally and erase its past to such an extent that should the old concept be taken up again - and it will, why not? - it will no longer stir any memory of the thing it once designated.”
Painting simply is in no position to present an object for simultaneous collective experience, as it was possible for architecture at all times, for the epic poem in the past, and for the movie today.
Reception in the state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film its true means of exercise. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.