Mechanics: Summary

Media is not an innocent instrument. The media is a tool in which we use to present information, but we filter and screen out data as consumers. It is filtered with the individuals sensibility to the informaiton, and to images. It is through media that we understand each other, share opinions, and we communicate our ideas through a self understanding, and through comparisons of our perception of media A large factory in how this information is produced and perceived falls on the individual sensibility, style, methods, and taste. A new factor in the absorption of information and images is the new digital interface. Del Mul aims to analayze the way that the digital interface constitutes and structures aesthetic experience of media.

How does the computer interface change the way we interact and experience media?

If we apply the theory of new media studies to Benjamin's thoughts on art and reproduction, the aura can be seen as acting as an interface between the sensible and the supersensible, that is: between the physical materiality of the work of art and its meaningful history. Benjamin believes than if an original work is destroyed, our connection backwards to the time in history which the object represents is forever severed, and the aura lost. In the digital age, Mul thinks that : " Uniqueness and permanence of the auraistic object are being replaced by transitoriness and reproducibility." Art has become more accessible, and in regard to its reproduction; the whole distinction between original and copy loses its meaning. "To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility". Meaning, art works are beginning to be created with the intention to become massively reproduced. Work in the digital age is not replying on the aura to bring the effect, but relying on the far reach of the mass produced object. "According to Benjamin, together with the aura, the cult value of artworks will gradually vanish. For emotional or economical reasons one can, of course, try to conserve the cult value" . This being the case, if the aura eventually vanishes anyway, then would the new paradime of images and media to ensure the the message of symbolic meaning of the image lives through recombination and manipulation? The value of images is no longer the aura, but lies in the exhibition value, which is largely the fame, the popularity, and the demand of the image. Benjamin’s essay has melancholic undertones, and he acts as if art will die, eventually, with this loss of aura. But at the same time, "Benjamin also expresses his belief that the ‘ mechanical media ’ possess a fundamental democratic and even revolutionary potential. Not only do they enable ‘ access for all ’ , they also enable the progressive artist to ‘ politicize the arts and mobilize the masses against the fascist ‘ aesthetization of politics". Even with this seemingly positive atribute of mechanical reproduction, new callenges also arrive. For example, in regard to digital recombination, we see many great stregnths, but also weaknesses. As the database as the example, we can see that there are an endless number of combinations of data. Computer art works bring an entirely new method of creating work, a new environment, a new type of evolution. Web art: Add, Browse, Change, Destroy: The life of an art work has changed in a computer. "Database ontology is dynamic because the data elements can be constantly combined, decombinded, and recombined" Everything is entering into the database. There is a mechanization of the world view. Everything from nature because an object for recombination and manipulation The world view is no longer limited to the scope of natural history, but has been expanded into the possibilities laid out to us by technology There is now a more complex question between what is a work of art, and what is a contemporary object "Benjamin remarks, there is no timeless answer to the question of whether a particular object should be regarded as a work of art". Astheticization of Politics and the Politization of Art Everyone becomes the cuator themselves as they edit and taper what the allow to be apart of their personal input, and what they do not. Manipulation value: "In the age of digital recombination, the value of an object depends on the extend of its openness for manipulation" A collection of works has more to offer a researcher than the single work of art in its original form. "The database becomes an autonmous work of art" "As the number of recombinations of a database is almost infinite, the work of art in the age of digital recombination brings about the reutrn of the aura." each new search becomes a new combination of the data digital objects are unstable, and therefor come with a new set of variables. "Digitally recombined work of art regains something of its ritual. it becomes an interface between sensible, and supersensibile...no longer located in history but in virtuality" Exhibition value vs Manipulation Value Political art: "A work of art challenges its recipients by directing their attention to the medium itself. works of art are not political because they manipulate politics, but because they reflect on the politics of manipulation" someone who views this type of art work will become aware of the politics of representation and manipulation. this is something that the computer is not capable of humans apply meaning to everything, and a work of art created by a computer can not have assigned true meaning to it. we look for symbolic value, and metaphor.