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THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL RECOMBINATION

Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

What is media

• Designation: us + our world
• Communication: us + our fellow
• Self-understanding: us + ourselves
  

Aura
As a 'unique phenomenon of a distance however close it may be' represents nothing but the formulation of the cult value of the work of art in categories of space and time perception.

Auratic work of art

• Sensible & Supersensible
• Material signifier & Spiritual meaning

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Jos de Mul

Transformation mode
Cult Value ＞ Exhibition Value ＞ Manipulation Value

Aim
This reflection by analysing the way the computer interface constitutes and structures aesthetic experience.

4 Operations of database

• Insert
• Select
• Update
• Delete

Theme

• In the age of digital recombination, the database constitutes the ontological model of the work of art.
• In this transformation, the exhibition value is being replaced by what we might call manipulation value.

- - - - > Presentation

The work of art in the age of digital recombination

There are two parts in this article. At first, the writer describes and explains The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which is a book written by Walter Benjamin in 1936, then he makes some points on the work of digital recombination. By contrasting this two progresses, Jos de Mul summarizes the law and try to image the tendency of media and art.

Part One:
Media are thought as ‘means for presenting information’ .Media are interfaces that mediate between us and our world (designation), us and our fellow man (communication), and between us and ourselves (self-understanding).
Benjamin investigates how mechanical reproduction transforms the work of art, claiming that in this ontological transformation the cult value, which once characterized the classical work of art, has been replaced by exhibition value.
Benjamin uses the word “aura” to designate the material and historical authenticity and authority of the unique work of art. The definition of the aura as a ‘unique phenomenon of a distance however close it may be represents nothing but the formulation of the cult value of the work of art in categories of space and time perception.
In my understanding, the auratic art works always followed with psychological distance, no matter how people close to them physical. The distance can be made by historical tradition or nature character.
To sum up, together with the aura, the cult value of artworks will gradually vanish, because the cult value gives way to exhibition value, which is precisely situated in the endless reproduction of the copies like print, photography and film.

Part two:
The aim of this part is to explain reflection by analyzing the way the computer interface constitutes and structures aesthetic experience. Artists use computers in many different ways to produce, store, display and distribute new media art.
There are 4 Operations of database: Insert, Select, Update and Delete. Jos thinks that, in the age of digital recombination, the database constitutes the ontological model of the work of art and the exhibition value is being replaced by what we might call manipulation value. In the age of digital databases, everything – nature and culture alike – becomes an object for recombination and manipulation.
In the end of the article, Jos de Mul gives us his imagination of future that we might be the first species that creates its own successors in the evolution of life and by doing so makes itself redundant.
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I agree most of the writers views, but I also disagree with him for some points.
He notes that the work of art in the age of digital recombination brings about a return of the aura, as the number of recombinations of a database is almost infinite. It becomes an interface between the sensible and the supersensible again.
I am quite interested in aura of art works and the distance between us and auratic art works. So I do not agree with the writer that he says the work of art in the age of digital recombination brings about a return of the aura, as the number of recombinations of a database is almost infinite.
I think AURA means the art works which are unique and/or soulful, and with quality guarantee period which means they are dying or vanishing physically all the time, then, in the end it will be destroyed entirely. People noticed that they are losing them, therefore, from the psychological level, they cherish them. However, the art works which are combined with infinite database information are more like the accidence. Artists or systems remix and recombine the database in coincidence and random, the content of them is also from what the individual receivers think of it.
What's more, I think that there is no value being replaced entirely, old values and new values coexist.