Javier Lloret – Annotation: The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish cultural critic, philosopher and sociologist. In 1936, being into exile in Paris because of the Nazi seizure of power, his essay “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, problably his best-known essay, was published in the journal of the Institute for Social Research.

The introduction of new technologies like the press on the 15th century, the lithography, photography and the technical reproduction of sound on the 19th century made possible the mechanical reproduction of works of Art. Benjamin, in this essay, analyzes its consequences of the way Art is contemplated, exhibited and reproduced. In addition to that he makes connections between the consequences of these changes and different art movement ideologies and politics.

Mechanical reproduction of works of Art bring Art closer to the masses but it detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. “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.” He uses the term “aura” of the work of Art to talk about that uniqueness “which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction”. According to Benjamin these consequences would bring Art closer to politics. He illustrates this statement talking about how the photographs of Eugène Atget, french photographer who around 1900 took photographs of deserted Paris streets, became an evidence for historical occurrences and had hidden political significance.

Benjamin also says that the daily press made possible, it started with the “letters to the editor” section, that anyone can get publish. He predicted that the distinction between author and public it was going to be vanished. Nowadays we can’t read these sentences without thinking how Internet, blogs and all kind of social networks have brought Benjamin’s prediction to a higher level.

Films, their differences with theater and paintings and the way is perceived are an important part of the essay. Paintings invite the spectator to contemplation, film interrupts by constant changes of images the spectator’s process of association. Authors like George Duhamel detested films: “I can no longer think that I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images”. Benjamin makes a connection between the effects of films and dadaists' practice: both share an effect of shock on the spectator.

Benjamin’s reflections about the effects of the mechanical reproduction in the art context have been completely reinforced with the invention of Tv, video, computers and Internet. We could expand Benjamin’s words about the photographic negative which can be used to make any number of copies of the same picture to any video art or digital art pieces. There’s not one authentic and its copies, they are all identical. Furthermore Internet, and the net art artistic movement, made possible the transmission of Art everywhere, breaking completely with the notion of the presence of an Art piece in time and space.