Walter Benjamin Modern Attitude Towards Digital and Mechanical Forms of Art
The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction Walter Benjamin, The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
notes on the text (last updated 04/28/99)
Introduction
In his famous 1936 essay entitled "The Work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," cultural theorist Walter Benjamin expressed not bad concern regarding the advent of reproductive technologies that were making works of art universally accessible to the public in a fashion that had never before been possible. He saw the proliferation of artistic reproductions as annihilative of the uniqueness of works of art and of the "aureola" that surrounds them. Writing in the Marxist tradition, Benjamin posits two utilizations of the e'er-increasing capability of mechanical reproduction � the Fascist, which gives the masses "not their right, simply instead a chance to express themselves," and uses reproductive technologies to create a political aesthetic which culminates in the Futuristic platonic of war as the ultimate expression of artistic sensibility; and the Communist, which resists the cult influence of Fascist aesthetizations by politicizing art to reflect the ascendance of the proletariat and promote the redistribution of property.
Benjamin�south vision of a world saturated with artistic images has been realized to a degree that might well take exceeded his wildest expectations. The modern personal estimator's listen-boggling capacity for the plentiful and inexpensive representation of visual, audible and performance art makes his agitation over photographic and cinematographic reproduction seem quaint. However, the questions Benjamin raised regarding the social consequences of such proliferation press upon usa with a greater intensity than ever earlier. Multimedia applied science is affecting our perception of reality, divorcing our definition of authenticity from its former prerequisite of physical beingness � by what means? to what ends? What are "the developmental tendencies of art nether nowadays conditions of product?" Are we moving towards "the art of a classless society," or does the geometric proliferation of art and artists inevitably tend toward "a processing of information in the Fascist sense?"
My aim is to evaluate the validity of Benjamin�s theories as they employ to the new realm of digital fine art. Has increased participation by the masses provided a new safeguard confronting the oppression of the private, or does a culture in which everyone can call himself an artist relentlessly drag the exceptionally talented downwards to the level of the common man? Is the unprecedented reproductive potential of hypermedia a fulfillment of Benjamin's prophecies, or is digital fine art a fundamentally different concept to which previous theories cannot be fruitfully applied?
I. Technical vs. Digital Reproduction
The Piece of work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Digital reproduction has certainly increased the relative accessibility of all types of artistic creation, only the artistic attributes of such reproductions practise not significantly differ from those produced by earlier methods.
A jpeg rendition of the Mona Lisa is unquestionably a reproduction, devoid of both the uniqueness and aureola of the original. The reproduction of original works by digital rather than mechanical ways is simply a methodological variation of the same concept. There is no question of these new versions supplanting the works that they are based upon - Penn's CETI plan is not creating electronic facsimiles of Renaissance era Shakespearean texts with the ultimate aim of doing abroad with Furness Memorial Library and replacing it with a parking garage. In that sense, the divergence between scanned and uploaded texts and paintings and a Gutenberg Bible is purely one of form.
Paintings, statues and manuscripts are treated to improve the effects of crumbling and pollution - a process that inevitably corrupts the artist's original intent with traces, however subtle, of the restorer's aesthetic ideology. Whatsoever physical object's "unique existence at the place where it happens to be" is an inescapably transient phenomenon. The same rule applies to digital reproductions of art. Their tools - Quark Xpress, Adobe Photoshop and a host of other programs with sophisticated image editing capabilities - merely mimic the furnishings of the laborious "preservation" processes enacted on the originals.
Photography and film, which were the epitome of technological achievement in Benjamin'due south lifetime, accept achieved such canonized status that it is hard to imagine a time when they were considered artistically unorthodox, even suspect. However, Benjamin is correct in pointing out that these developments "freed the hand of the well-nigh of import artistic function which henceforth devolved simply upon the eye looking into a lens." The speed and ease of capturing photographic and cinematic images made all previous innovations seem insignificant in comparing. The increases in quantity and accessibly were likewise unprecedented.
Hypermedia has extended the revolutionary potential of photography and cinema in redefining our formulation of authenticity, just equally with still art, the digitization of the reproductive process does not alter the primal assumptions nether which fine art been created throughout man history. The encoding of images that were initially captured on movie is not an attempt to make the artist's original vision into something new; information technology is simply a new method of disseminating the material. In fact, hypermedia has greatly enhanced the ability of filmmakers and film critics to study and compare cinematographic fine art without resorting to abstraction (see University of Maryland professor Robert P. Kolker's The Moving Image Reclaimed for a detailed explanation of how digital encoding helps to preserve actuality in his field).
Insofar as 1 accepts Benjamin's assertion that reproduction "may not affect the actual work of fine art, yet the quality of its presence is e'er depreciated" and acknowledges that any method of copying "detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition," digital art has certainly contributed to the "withering of aura" that characterizes postmodern social club's
attitude towards works of art. In the absence of ritual, art's meaning has indeed come to be located in the realm of politics.
II. Digital Creations
A new generation of artists are compiling a trunk of works that are specifically intended to be presented on a computer screen. Are these works intrinsically lacking in the explicit quality of singularity that Benjamin attributes to true art, or are they the only purely unique art that we have left?
Objects that exist in virtual reality remain untouched in their essence by the constant progress in their means of representation. New monitors may brandish images with greater resolution, new speakers produce clearer and richer tones, but the binary sequences that correspond an artist'due south "original" try cannot be modified with the alibi that time and exposure to the elements has distorted the physicality of the object. To modify the source file of a digital piece of work of art is to obliterate its beingness and create an entirely new object whose deviation from its predecessor is an unambiguous mathematical certainty.
Benjamin's theories of authenticity, formulated years before any kind of digitization was developed, seem to notice their fullest expression in the theory and exercise of hypermedia. The beingness of digital art is inextricably entwined with its style of representation and at the aforementioned fourth dimension completely contained of it. The assembled code that constitutes a digital work of art
bears no resemblance to the fine art as it is meant to be viewed. Its "unique existence" has meaning for the observer only when filtered through the deciphering processes of a Web browser. The result of this translation is the art as it truly exists, without consideration of storage or transport, displayed on the monitor in undeniable authenticity and utter lack of location. For example, this illustration by digital creative person Nancy Stahl was transferred into my essay as a drove of symbols completely meaningless to the human observer (for a graphic sit-in of this fact, right click on the image and select "View Image," then right click again and select "View Source." ). However, the image as she envisioned information technology is accurately represented through the good offices of Netscape, and the existence of the work of art, its authenticity, its aura, is present on this computer screen in exactly the same style that it was on hers. No unmarried difficult bulldoze tin lay claim to possession of the original image, yet information technology is undeniably a unique creation.
� Nancy Stahl
3. The Social and Artistic Significance of Hypermedia
"The mass is a matrix from which all traditional behavior towards works of fine art bug today in a new grade. Quantity has been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the mode of participants... a human who concentrates before a piece of work of art is absorbed past it... in contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art.
The Piece of work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction
In considering the digital versus mechanical reproduction of art, Benjamin'southward theories seem to be easily applicable, since proliferation, accessibility and the consequent shift from cult to consumer value are just enhanced by the advent of hypermedia engineering. However, the issue of hypermedia creation of artistic works compels us to tackle the event of interactivity in a way that Benjamin was unable to. Does the universal editing chapters of an Internet audience mean that a piece of work of art is absorbed by them, or does the power to manipulate how a work is viewed depict the observer deeper into the artistic experience than was previously possible. Is hypermedia an absorbed or an absorbing miracle?
Glenn A. Kurtz'south The Aesthetics of Scale finds a parallel betwixt Benjamin'southward theories on the revolution in perception created past film and the electric current "aesthetic of multiple scales" that is existence shaped by the increasing use of hypermedia for creative purposes. This new mode of creation is fundamentally different from was has come before it. Using hypermedia only to broaden the spectrum of accessibility for reproductions of "traditional" works of art would constitute a tragic underreaching on the part of both creators and observers of digital fine art. As Kurtz states, "[multimedia's] significance will emerge merely when information technology changes how nosotros see, when it changes what we sympathise by an "paradigm." To be revolutionary, multimedia must be more than a new technology, it must become a new conceptual art."
Thus far, participation in hypermedia creation has adhered to Benjamin'southward ascertainment that "the distinction between author and public is virtually to lose its basic grapheme." Just as with writing one-half a century earlier, visual and aural artistic license "is now founded on polytechnic rather than specialized training and thus becomes common property." Literally millions of people in this country solitary posess all the resource needed to publish their creations online. It can be argued that widespread technical capability results in a plethora of mediocre artistic output, with quality being buried under rather than transmuted into quantity. Benjamin cites a passage Aldous Huxley'south Beyond the Mexique Bay equally an example of this type of thinking, simply he himself does non subscribe to the notion that accessibility can outstrip the resources of a finite puddle of talent. Rather, he maintains that the ability of each observer to become an artist increases the value of art, creating more of a shared feel and diminishing the cult influence that Fascism relies upon to retain its pop mandate.
The unique power of hypermedia to supply the positive aspects of both the mass consumption and mystical/religious traditions of producing art simultaneously is something that Benjamin did not foresee. Because digital fine art is so incredibly cheap to produce and make bachelor to a large group of potential viewers, fine art is existence created without whatsoever thought of entertaining the mass of viewers or obtaining their approval. For the cost of a computer and an Internet connection, electronic sounds and images tin be disseminated to the masses at a rate of efficiency that print and broadcast media can never hope to accomplish. While digital art certainly can be created with a specifically mercenary intent, "art for art's sake" is not required to give place to commercialization. As exemplified by the common tactic of placing banners advertising commercial sites on nonprofit sites of the same genre (click here to view an instance of this practice), creativity and commerce on the Web be in a mutually supportive relationship. In the infinite universe of internet, there is room plenty for all kinds and qualities of art - Pepsi logos and Picassos alike. The art that is absorbing and the art that is absorbed are no longer in such danger of coalescing.
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�The origin of German tragic drama. Translated by John Osborne; with an
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� Reflections: essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writing. Translated by
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Ii. Hypermedia Theory
Bruckman, Amy. "Cyberspace is non Disneyland: the role of the artist in a networked globe."
Written nether the auspices of the MIT Media Lab�south Epistemology and Learning Group for the
Getty Art History Information Programme.
Available at: http://www.ahip.getty.edu/cyberpub/bruckman.html
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Kac, Eduardo. "Interactive Fine art on the Internet." Available at:
http://ekec.org/InteractiveArtontheNet.html
Kurtz, Glenn A. The Aesthetics of Scale. Copyright 1997.
Bachelor at http://world wide web.cel.sfsu.edu/MSP/Instructors/Kurtz/Aesthetic.html
McGann, Jerome. "The Rationale of Hypertext." Available at:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/public/jjm2f/rationale.html
Ryan, Marie-Laure. "Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory."
Bachelor at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v005/5.1ryan.html
3. Digital Art Resources
(Re)Soundings - peer-reviewed "hypermedia journal in the humanities"
MIT Media Lab - inquiry centre for both technical and aesthetic multimedia bug
Adobe Art Gallery - this virtual gallery on the Adobe spider web site offers a varied collection
of hypermedia works by professional person digital artists.
Postmodern Civilization - journal of postmodern theory, publishes both hypermedia and
plain text documents
Source: https://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~lpottle/RabateFinal.html
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