mechanical reproduction, week 6 responce
The work or art in the age of mechanical reproduction
This weeks reading fit perfectly with our discussion of “The white cube” and are taking a deeper look at photography’s significance. In the beginning of Walter Benjamin’s article I was reminded of how art started out from a ritual place. Similar to the “White Cube in which the author describes the gallery space as a sanctuary for art. Art then moved on to being put on show, something for the viewer as much as the ritual of creation. After this came reproduction, making the art something all could view via a copy. There is speculation about the good that reproduction can do. On the one hand it makes the art accessible to a much larger audience then the type of folks that go into a gallery, on the other hand it separates the viewer from actually experiencing the original work and therefore its aura. “The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “Spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity.”(x) This leads to a discussion of art as capital. The current trend is to make your work as marketable as possible in order to survive. This theme seems to go hand in hand with reproducibility, making your art something lots of people can buy.
Benjamin goes on to discuss film and photography as reproducible art mediums that have both negative and positive effects on society and culture. I like his reference to film being a way to make people notice their space, he describes are day-to-day existence in the places we inhabit. Being “burst” open “By the dynamite of the tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling. With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended.”(XIII) I like the idea of the camera capturing something that we would not be able to see. I appreciate looking at the history of art, photography and film through this lens. I also liked the political commentary at the end with the gruesome quote about how war can transform a place into a work or art.
Margaritte Knezek
