In
his famous "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Walter Benjamin uses the concept of "aura" to designate the quality
of originality and authenticity of the aesthetic experience of an original work
of art (to learn more about Benjamin's concepts of aura and authenticity see separate post).
According
to Benjamin and the thesis he promotes on "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction" advanced reproduction and distribution techniques
that have evolved in the early 20th century have had a significant
impact on the art world. What Benjamin is arguing is that the social function
of art has changed with the appearance of technology based art like the cinema.
This historical process is explained by Benjamin as the loss of the aura and
the degeneration of art which has its aesthetic value determined by its
originality or one-timeness.
Photography
and then cinema lead the way in the degeneration of the aura. These mediums
are, according to Benjamin, the central agents in the process of the
transformation of art's social function. Mechanical reproduction is faster:
faster to produce, faster to distribute. Machinery such as the camera assumes
the place of the artist of craftsman and denies any authorship of a unique
original.
Mechanical
reproduction bridges the space-time gap between the subject and object of the
aesthetic experience. It makes the artwork the viewer's contemporary. The loss
of the aura is accompanied and affected by the mass reproduction and the
"flattening" of the work of art. Mass reproduction of art sets the
stage for a new type of human perception: collective perception which according
to Benjamin allows for the politicization
of art later in "The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction".
The
medium for Walter Benjamin is not only the message but also an agent of social
and political change. The new type of mechanically reproduced work of art is
widely accessible for the masses and it thus positions people in a whole new
relation to it. Benjamin, in chapter 12 of "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction", gives the example of how cinema is consumed when
situated in a group on the one hand and as anonymous on the other hand. The
crowed regulated itself and in that the individual's position towards the film.
This notion is obviously linked to the Frankfurt School notion about the culture industry.
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