Kimberly Hampton
Reading Assessment #2
11/30/04
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin's essay on the status of art in the midst of cultural change has
become a vital text for the study of media and society. His characterization of the
"aura" provides a new way to consider the significance of art objects, and also helps
illustrate how that significance has been affected by our evolving modes of production.
Although his argument is founded in the mechanical age where mass production and
replication was mainly analog, it still resonates in today's digital age- perhaps even
more so, since digital technology has further confirmed Benjamin’s ideas.
Published in 1935, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
came out of a Marxist approach that studied the interrelation of political, technological,
and artistic development under the capitalist system. Benjamin introduces politics to
the art world by demonstrating the propaganda potential of mass media such as
photography and film. He simultaneously mourns the loss of the “aura”, fears the
Fascist appropriation of aestheticized politics, and praises the revolutionary possibilities
of modern, democratized mass media arts.
To establish a historical context for his argument on reproducible art, Benjamin
discusses the advent of nineteenth century lithography, which enabled graphics to keep
pace with daily printing, and the subsequent advent of photography, which was able to
keep pace with speech. Photography then led to sound films that could record events as
they actually occurred. Today we find ourselves able to watch live feeds that capture
life as it happens in real-time. The pattern evident in this history is one of steady
1
Kimberly Hampton
Reading Assessment #2
11/30/04
acceleration. Benjamin considers the last two technologies, photography and film, the
epitome of how art has transformed its purpose and essence under the new modes of
mechanical reproduction.
According to the essay, the greatest transformation has been the loss of the aura.
Benjamin defines the aura as, “the unique phenomenon of distance” (222). He uses the
example of standing before a mountain and sensing the physical distance between the
natural entity and oneself, or the distance apparent between a stage actor and his
audience. The aura is the presence in time and space of an original work of art, which
retains the authenticity and tradition that makes it unique. While art has always been
essentially reproducible, only recently has the fundamental quality of that reproduction
changed. Mechanical reproduction deprives art objects of their authenticity by
removing the human element. For instance, photography is able to capture images that
even the human eye is incapable of perceiving. Benjamin writes that, “the camera
introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses”
(237). Also, a mechanically-produced duplicate can be recontextualized, further
undermining the genuine substance and authority of the original piece.
The loss of aura replaces permanence with transience and unique originals with
replicas. Benjamin attributes this change to the contemporary crisis we have
undergone at the hands of technological development. Our obsession with mass
manufacturing and assembly-line construction has robbed people of their individuality,
reducing them to cogs in a machine. Likewise, artwork has also been robbed of its
unique presence. We accept this artificial reality as though we might overcome the loss
of aura by embracing its reproduction. We are driven by a contemporary urge to bring
2
Kimberly Hampton
Reading Assessment #2
11/30/04
objects closer to us, destroying the phenomenon of distance that defines the aura. Even
now, the modern film industry is consumed by the challenge of capturing human forms
in digital pixels. The film, Polar Express, is one example of our determined desire to
replace authentic human actors with their digitized, lifeless clones. Technological
possibility tends to overlook our actual experiences as human beings, and aims to bring
us so close to the objects we strive to contain that their very essence disappears.
Benjamin’s “aura” is anchored in a domain of tradition. He explains this
premise by discussing how the earliest works of art originated from a ritualistic purpose.
Whether referring to the religious cult that dominated medieval times, or the secular cult
of beauty that dominated the Renaissance, Benjamin makes the point that art
traditionally existed as a theology. When that theology is removed, we are left with a
“pure” art form void of ritualistic or social function. That void is filled by political
intention. Art and media begin to merge. Passive “art for art’s sake” is supplanted by a
more active artistic expression of political struggle. Before, the consideration of art
existed as a dichotomy; it could be seen as either a cult object where the value derived
from its sole existence (such as certain ancient statues viewed only by high priests), or it
could be seen as an exhibition piece where the value derived from its public
presentability (such as the mass media that has developed today). In our current age,
the exhibition value has superseded the cult value, creating an entirely new function
outside of artistic intentions.
The public quality of mass media, specifically film and photography, is what has
redefined and politicized the function of art according to Benjamin’s argument. Some
of the original cult value still exists in these new art forms, but a radical change has
3
Kimberly Hampton
Reading Assessment #2
11/30/04
occurred. Traces of traditional cult value exist in early photography as “the cult of
remembrance”, where artists choose to focus on capturing human expression through
portraits of dead or lost loved ones. But as we move toward modern forms of
expression, the emphasis falls on photography’s exposition, functioning more as
political and historical evidence accompanied by directive captions and prescribed
meaning.
With the rise of photography came a debate over its validity as an art form
compared to the classic traditions of painting and sculpture. This debate inevitably
extended to the questioning of film’s legitimacy as well. Critics, such as Duhamel,
condemned film as, “a pastime for helots, a diversion for the uneducated, wretched,
worn-out creatures who are consumed by their worries” (239). They viewed it as a
distraction for the masses that was not conducive to the type of highbrow contemplation
warranted by conventional masterpieces. The social-minded style that had begun with
the outrageous Dada movement had now invaded the cinema. Like Dada art, film has
the potential to evoke public sensation because it refuses to let the viewer rest in any
state of quiet appreciation. Benjamin even goes as far as to call it an “instrument of
ballistics”, arguing that a politicized aesthetic will “culminate one thing: war” (238,
241).
Benjamin cites two major aspects of film as the basis for its revolutionary
potential; the relation between actor and audience, and the mass nature of the medium.
Compared to the aura that exists within the physical space between stage actor and
audience member, cinematic relationships are less directly intimate. The camera device
interjects itself, disrupting the tangibility of the relationship. Instead of a fluid
4
Kimberly Hampton
Reading Assessment #2
11/30/04
performance that can spontaneously adapt to the dynamics of the audience, film
produces a synthetically arranged series of performances that lack any real interaction.
The actor is fabricated through cinematic techniques, forcing the viewer to ultimately
identify, not with the actor himself, but with the camera that creates his persona.
Benjamin writes that the actor's body is "deprived of its corporeality, it
evaporates…consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the
aura of the figure he portrays" (229). He, along with other critics such as Pirandello,
considers this divide a major crisis. The anxiety that Marxists speak of in regards to
alienation and estrangement is seen here as a "feeling of strangeness that overcomes the
actor before the camera" (230). To compensate for this lack of connection, the actor's
public image becomes a "cult of personality", born out of the sensationalized artifice of
his identity.
The second aspect of film that Benjamin cites is its mass nature. Just as the
lithograph and printed newspapers had the power to widely distribute information to the
public, so too is film capable of reaching a large audience. And just as newspapers
created writers out of readers, film also invites participation from its audience. In one
sense, Benjamin is referring to the practice of filming people in their natural
environments, which directly involves the masses in the production of media. The
accessible and wide-reaching quality of film changes the function of art in society, and
the lines between actor/audience and critic/viewer begin to blur. In another sense,
Benjamin refers to the "profound changes in apperception" brought on by media that is
more tactile and instructive than contemplative and benign. Receiving such media is a
mass endeavor that "assails the spectator" (238), which Benjamin likens to the
5
Kimberly Hampton
Reading Assessment #2
11/30/04
appreciation of public architecture. He writes that, "Architecture has always
represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consummated by a
collectivity in a state of distraction" (239).
Reception in a state of distraction is the foremost quality of film that allows it to
function in a political sense. For Benjamin, the only way to confront the most pertinent
issues facing us as a society is to "master them gradually by habit, under the guidance of
tactile appropriation" (240). Rejecting the bourgeoisie notion of generating progress
through intellectual rationalization, Benjamin designates film and other such mass
media as the means to political change. Any imposing government that attempts to
limit the production of media by withholding the technological means that make it
possible is risking warfare. In today's modern age, politics and aesthetics have become
so interrelated that one cannot exist without dramatically implicating the other.
6