Throughout Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” I was continually surprised by how many of the issues Benjamin touched on (75 years ago) still resonate with us today.
First came the issue of mechanical reproduction. Historically speaking, reproduction has always been evident. It was unproblematic when pupils of a craft made replicas by way of learning, when made by masters for diffusing their works, or by third parties in the pursuit of gain. What was problematic however were two thing: when the presence in a work of art was lacking in time and space, and when the process of reproduction compromised quality for quantity.
When a work of art is lacking in time and space, it is also lacking in tradition. An important aspect of art is the tradition of having a unique history: where the piece originated, acknowledged ownership of the piece and the changes within both. Only the original can hold these traits, which leads to the first issue of “authenticity.” This, as we have read, does not stand true for “technical reproductions” such as the developing of film, because of course there is no original or “authentic” print. It does stand true however for “mechanical reproductions” where the mass production of a piece leaves the work of art vulnerable as the quality of its presence becomes depreciated. Nevertheless, although the uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its roots in tradition, this tradition is also changeable. For instance, Benjamin discusses an ancient statue of Venus who stood in different traditional context within the Greeks and the clerics of the Middle Ages. Though each group viewed the statue differently, they were both confronted with with its uniqueness. As Benjamin states, “It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its authenticity is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use,” (Benjamin, 5).
When the importance of authenticity is lost and the process of reproduction begins to compromise quality for quantity, the issue of “aura”, or the lack there of, comes to rise. As mentioned above, art has always maintained a uniqueness to the creator and to the viewer that is transcended throughout history. However, when those pieces begin to be made for the masses, they also begin to lose their aura and gain only social influence and significance. When art is made for the masses, individuals lose their sense of independent evaluation. When the masses decide what to think of a piece, the viewer becomes biased to think the same way. Currently in my art history class, we are discussing how this is called a “framing device.” Art is thoughtfully put in advertisements, on book covers and displayed throughout museums so that we all feel a certain way about them. It makes me wonder, what would I think about the “Mona Lisa” for instance, had it never been “framed” to me a certain way. Plastered on calendars, billboards and highlighted as the main attraction at the Louvre Museum in Paris, of course I am conditioned to believe this painting is a masterpiece, even though I have never been to the Louvre to pay my respects to Leonardo Da Vinci. If it was not framed to me this way however, I may just think of the Mona Lisa as a mediocre looking woman with no eyebrows. Although this piece was not originally intended to be made for the masses, in the 21st century it likely holds such high significance for its ability to be reproduced in so many ways and in so many places. Thus in the absence of any traditional or ritualistic value, art in the age of mechanical reproduction would inherently be based on the practice of politics.
New to learning about the history of digital art and digital media, I rarely think of the Internet or the World Wide Web as a technology that was once not accessible by the click of a mouse. However, in 1945 when Vannevar Bush wrote the article "As We May Think", he was certainly ahead of his time. He discussed a device he dreamed up called the "memex"; a machine in which "an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility", (Bush). Already sounding amazingly close to today's basic computer, he went on to explain the different features of this device. Bush wanted the memex to have the ability to not only receive, store and retrieve information, but he also wanted the machine to have associative indexing. This idea alone shows Bush's "crystal ball thinking" which points to today's World Wide Web.
As humans we think associatively, so therefore it would certainly be best to develop a device that could aid us in doing this better and faster. With the memex Bush's essential feature was the process of tying two things together. "When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item." Simply put, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, like turning the pages of a book.
I wonder what Walter Benjamin would have thought about this invention. Perhaps he would have thought this was just a new “framing device” for the masses; a new way to make art easily reproducible and distributable, leaving work with no authenticity and no aura. Had he looked a little deeper into the future however, maybe he would have found that eventually, artists would use this as a special medium, not as a default. It is human nature to strive for uniqueness, just as a work of art does, and today new artists are striving for this by using a digital medium.
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