Preface
In Marxist theory, the superstructure (culture, art) transforms with substructure (economy). The art of the proletariat (mass art) brushes aside outmoded values of creativity, genius, eternal value and mystery (all values of Fascist art). The concepts introduced here pertain not to Fascist art but form the basis for a revolutionary art.
I. In principle a work of art has always been reproducible;
- The Greeks: founding and stamping.
- The Middle Ages: engraving and etching
- 19th century: technology (lithography; photography) was able to reproduce it all: Photography “freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth devolved on the eye looking into a lens.”
II. In reproductions, the “here and now” of the artwork—its “unique existence in a particular place—has gone missing. Even the most perfect reproduction lacks the original’s unique presence in time and space (aka, its authenticity). With manual reproduction (forgery), the original preserves its authority.
Not so with technical (process reproduction) because:
- Process reproduction is independent of the original. A photo can bring out aspects of the original accessible only to the lens.
- Process reproduction can put the copy into situations out of reach for the original. (It comes to you.) “The cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral production resounds in the drawing room.”
That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. Reproducibility shatters tradition:
- by substituting a plurality of copies for a unique original
- by permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation (“reactivating” the object reproduced).
III. Modes of perception change over history and have social determinants. The decay of the aura is determined by:
- desire of masses to get closer to things
- desire to overcome uniqueness by embracing reproduction > a democratization of aesthetics. “To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object.”
IV. Aura has its origins in ritual, from which art itself originated. Ritual survives in secularized form (the Renaissance cult of beauty and more recently in art for art’s sake).
But photography “the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction,” challenges art’s traditional function and emancipates art from its social function—“the parasitical dependence on ritual.”
The work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. A negative can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense.
Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.
V. As cult value (aka art’s ritual uses) declines, exhibition value increases. Today, reproducibility allows ‘absolute emphasis’ on exhibition and opens up a new function for art.
VI. “The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture.”
But outside of portraiture, photography trades cult value for exhibition value. Atget’s deserted streets strip are like scenes of a crime (stripped of aura) and exist to establish evidence of historical occurrences. “Free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them.” Likewise, captions (as distinct from titles) are directive and full of political significance.
VII. The invention of photography transformed the entire nature of art. Film theorists, like photography theorists previously, waste time trying to explain these media in traditional terms, instead of considering the terms of this new art.
- Abel Gance: compares film with hieroglyphs
- Séverin-Mars: “What art has been granted a dream more poetical and more real!”
- Alexandre Arnoux: “the definition of prayer?”
- Werfel: the sterile copying of the exterior world has obstructed the elevation of the film to the realm of art. “The film has not yet realized its true meaning, its real possibilities … these consist in its unique faculty to express by natural means and with incomparable persuasiveness all that is fairylike, marvelous, supernatural.”
VIII. The film actor differs from the stage actor: the camera and editing process do not respect the performance as a whole, and the actor cannot adjust to the audience. The audience identifies with the camera rather than the actor: this is not compatible with cult value.
IX. The part is acted not for an audience but for a mechanical contrivance. The film actor must operate with “his whole living being,” while foregoing its aura. Aura requires presence: substitute the camera for the audience and the aura of the actor vanishes. “Nothing shows more graphically that art has escaped the realm of ‘beautiful semblance.”
X. Hollywood responds to the withering of the aura by manufacturing a new cult: that of the movie star (the “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity), illusion-promoting spectacles and dubious speculations. Contrast this with documentary film (specifically Soviet), which features ordinary people as “actors.”
There are parallels in print culture: new press venues transformed readers into writers, the distinction between author and public faded, and literature became common property.
XI. On a film set, you cannot be unaware of the equipment; the “illusory nature of film” is of the second degree (it comes from post-production editing). “Film offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment.”
XII. Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses to art. Confronting contemporary painting (Picasso), the masses take a reactionary stance while in viewing film, they are progressive. Film fuses pleasure with “an attitude of expert appraisal.” With film (like architecture but unlike painting), there is a dynamic between the individual and mass response—that is, a “simultaneous collective reception.”
XIII. Film lends itself to analysis (just as Freudian psychoanalysis made analyzable things that had heretofore gone unnoticed). In film, artistic and scientific uses are identical. By close-ups, by selective focus, by exploring commonplace, film both extends our comprehension of the ordinary and expands the possibility of adventure. “Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices and furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us locked up hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison-world asunder.”
Even if one has a general knowledge of the way people walk, one knows nothing of a person’s posture during the fractional second of a stride. The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
XIV. Dada anticipated film: in its effort to destroy the aura and make artworks useless “as objects of contemplative immersion.” Distraction was produced as the opposite of contemplation. The shock effect of Dada anticipated the shock effect of film, which consists in our inability to stop the images in order to contemplate them.
XV. Film has produced a different kind of participation, “reception in distraction.” Distraction and concentration are antitheses. Traditional art (like painting) requires concentration: the viewer is absorbed by the art. With film, “the distracted masses absorb the work of art.”
To understand this idea of distraction, think of how we experience buildings. We don’t really pay attention to the building (unless we’re tourists) but rather we habituate to it.
But the distracted person also forms habits and art (film) tackles those habits for us. In a sense, it trains us without our knowing we are being trained. That is, we now receive art in a state of distraction (as opposed to contemplation) and this reception in distraction marks a profound change in perception.
“It encourages an evaluating attitude” and will make it possible for art to mobilize the masses. The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.
Epilogue. Fascism aestheticizes political life as a means of giving expression to the masses without changing property relations. The inevitable result of this is war. Communism replies by politicizing art.
| Traditional art | Art in the age of mechanical reproduction |
| Aura | Decay of aura |
| Unique existence (presence) | Mass existence |
| Authenticity / originality | Multiplicity |
| Distance | Closeness |
| Ritual basis | Political basis |
| Cult value | Exhibition value |
| Contemplation | Distraction |
| Art absorbs the viewer | The viewer absorbs art |
| Painting | Photography / Film |
| Masses react in hostility | Mass react progressively |
| Fascism | Communism |
| Aestheticization of politics | Politicization of art |
Critical Issues 
The Walter Benjamin article states, “In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men.” To over simplify, “art is to be mimicked, just as art mimics us.” I see this as an argument of man’s desire for validation, and inherent fear of rejection. What is art, if not a direct extension of the artist, and a sublimation of internal turmoil.
I suppose the danger of living in the age of mechanical reproduction is the possibility of mass production of said internal turmoil. Man makes the object for the self, but if it is mass produced, does the creator fear the possibility for rejection? Does the reproduced object have less value than the original? By who’s measure? Benjamin proposes that when a reproduction is made, it depreciates the value of the original. When it is applied by the batch, the original becomes less special. Again, I wonder if the loss of value is imposed by the consumers or by the original creator.
If the question of imposed value cannot be answered, Benjamin ponders this question on a chemical level, with not the creator in mind, but the owner. He writes, “Various changes in its ownership. The traces of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is impossible to perform on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from the situation of the original.” He concludes you can get an reproduction, but it will lack the indescribable attributes of the original. If that is the case, will owning this reproduction, and knowing that it is a reproduction make it less valued to the owner?
With Walter Benjamin’s musing in mind, I can only conclude that the value of mechanical reproduction is relative to the owner. This past weekend, I went to Atlantic City. I remembered my great Aunt Harriet taking bus trips with my cousin Nancy specifically to go to the Harrah’s Casino. Aunt Harriet has since passed, and at this point in the trip, I was out of gambling money, but I still went to the casino. It was tacky and out dated, but I still found cult value in buying a keychain for my cousin. Relative to me, I saw the casino at face value, but relative to my cousin the trinket of cult will connect to the memory, and to her is where the value is held.
“I wonder if the loss of value is imposed by the consumers or by the original creator.”
Great question: I suppose it depends on the creator’s motive — if it’s communicate pure and simple, then the spread of the work, by whatever means, will be welcomed, but if it’s to assert one’s self, one’s ego, one’s agency, then maybe not. But whatever the answer, your question points to a serious issue about the nature and value of the production of art. What’s it for?
Beyond that, mechanical reproduction seems to cut two ways: so at least in terms of market value, the Mona Lisa has benefited greatly from all those mechanically reproduced Mona Lisas (Lord knows how much it would sell for it if ever came up for sale). But has it benefited in terms of viewer experience? When we see it can we actually SEE it anymore? Is it SO reproduced that the thing itself has lost its presence? Its power to move us? (Insert drumroll) Its aura?
Again, another one of your posts that slipped by me. Better late.