User:Themsen/RWRM3-2
Synopsis of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Walter Benjamin
- paragraphs in need of further contemplation
Preface:
The purpose of capitalism is to be replaced in exchange for a classless society or, worst case, a fascist society. After 50 years of formation the new plan of the societal superstructure is beginning to crystalize and tells us that in order for this replacing of societies not to be fascist the art must not be venerated as untouchable, but aim to revolutionize through reproduction.
I:
The practice of reproduction isn't new, but has intensified since the introduction of the printing press. The second revolution arrived when photography replaced painting to reproduce reality, this has caused the eye to catch up with the hand in its ability to reproduce reality.
II:
What is common to every reproduction is its decontextualization from the environment it was made in, but its potential for spreading a message makes up for this. As oppoed to manual reproduction - which deals with the recreation of the original, often less valuable (a forgery) - process reproduction, in photography, can reveal more than was originally shown and increase both the value of the original and reproduction.
III:
Mechanical reproduction is tied to the decay of the aura, authenticity, of the natural or man-made work of art. It rests on two circumstances: a wish of the masses to bring these works closer spatially and humanly, and the wish to overcome the uniqueness of reality in order to possess it.
IV:
The original's authenticity depends on a ritualistic reiteration of its veneration through tradition. Mechanical reproduction is the first time in human history where the work of art isn't venerated for its originality, but for its reproducibility.
V:
Because its aura is tied to ritual, hierarchy, the traditional handling of a work of art is exclusive. Through mechanical reproduction the work of art became so ubiquitous that the ritual of the work could be sidestepped and depend more on the connotative value of the masses than the denotative cult value of the work of art.
VI:
The absense of the human both in mechanical reproduction and the resulting product has led cult value to take its last stand in contemporary memorial works of art as a symbol for the rememberance of persons. This mechanical reproduction of ritual value takes it's strength in sequential, repetitive, practices of rememberance.
VII:
Many early theoreticians misinterpreted film and photography as a continuation of tradition. They had not realized the break with traditional pictorial renditions.
VIII:
- The artistic performance of the stage actor must be shown to the public as a whole and requires the
public to show a greater respect towards the actor's performance as subject to an original, cult-like work of art. The screen actor is subject to the camera's editing ability and therefore the cult-value, its oneness, is stripped from the performance, leaving the critique of the public to rest on the work of the camera, not the actor's performance, and the iterated film-shots taken to create the camera-sequence.
IX:
The aura of the screen actor's performance vanishes when the gaze of the camera is subsituted for the gaze of the public. The performance of the stage actor is not their own interpretation of the character but an interpretation of the triad camera/editor/actor.
X:
The decline of the aura of the screen actor is replaced by a process of commodification of personality which centers on the personality of the actor rather than the characters he seeks to portray, a 'false' aura. The disconnection between real performance and mechanical reproducton makes it possible for members of the public to author their own personhood.
XI:
The performance piece presents one level of illusion, the staging; the performed camera piece presents an extra level of illusion, the cutting of its mechanical reproduction. The difference between traditional production and mechanical reproduction is like the mysterious role of the placebo - the magician's lay on hands, and the constructed work of the surgeon.
XII:
- Through the disconnection between performance and mechanically reproduced performance,
mechanical reproduction changes the reaction towards art from a venerable oneness to part of a progressive sequence of works. The live performance has a greater social significance to its audience and is therefore less critiqued by the public, while a mechanical reproduction of the performance invites the public to form their own interpretation of the sequential experience with the help of the less hierarchical relation of editor/public.
XIII:
The representation of reality through camera makes the reality moldable, questionable and, ironically, mysterious through its multitude of interpretations. Through the narrowing and focus of the camera lense the represented reality can give more, or less importance to items which may be invisile in a traditional representation of reality.
XIV:
The anti-traditionalism of Dadaism critiqued the making of the work of art as a cult object by laying the base for a potential future where all representation of reality had lost its authority, aura, through the iterability of mechanical reproduction (i.e. Kurt Schwitter's street scrap-collages), first expressed through surrealism and now reality. The mechanically reproduced work of art is a commodified representation of this Dadaist mode of expression.
XV:
The mechanical reproduction is more participatory, with the quantity of the masses as the primary interpreters- and representers of reality. In this way art, in the age of mechanical reproduction, has captivated the masses so much as to distract them in various ways, and has more easily allowed them to mobilize together.
Epilogue:
Fascism is a turn where the masses do not have their rights, but are controlled by their expression through mechanical reproduction [media culture, control society]. The lack of rights will only lead to war as the rate of expression begins to cascade into a systemic collapse as even the aura of war loses its hold.