Walter Benjamin Reading

It seems that Walter Benjamin is saying that an "art object" is diminished in an audience's reaction to it when it is mechanically reproduced through photographic means. For example, films are generally for the sake of enjoyment and entertainment and not seen as "art" in general, compared to a painting which is almost always critiqued first, then looked at for its aesthetics. A work of photographic recording is embellished in its value by the mechanisms themselves: they record exactly what is in front of the camera, which allows for interpretation. Though the placement and manipulation of the camera elements is the duty and license of the filmmaker, these formats are at the minimum less abstracted than media such as painting or drawing.

Mixed Body - Jack Martin-

On Friday I attended the Mixed Body performance. First I went to Annenberg Hall where I sat down on a chair that had sensors on it and a camera and a screen in front of me. I was told to read sentenced off the screen and the camera and the sensors in the chair took my information. The whole process only took about a minute. Afterwords I went to Conwell Hall. The theatre upstairs was really neat. It had a huge video screen and it was completely darkened. Then the dancers came out and drew on the floor with their bodies. I was not personally a big fan of the dance portion. It was interesting to see the faces of the people from Annenberg but I personally did not understand what the dancing was about.

PLZ RESPOND TO THESE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE READING

Required Reading for Tuesday, Sept. 22: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, by Walter Benjamin. (Translated by J.A. Underwood). Alternatively, you can read this more newly-adopted translation, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, (Translated from Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technicshen Reproduzierbarkeit [1936] Gesammelte Schriften I, vol. 2, p. 431-508 by Zohn and Jephcott)

Blog Questions: In what ways is Walter Benjamin saying that our experience of the "art object" is diminished by the tools of mechanical reproduction (photography and film)? In what ways is he saying that our experience of the art object is expanded by these new tools? Blog your response to these two questions by "commenting" on this post, or on each other's comments.
Posted by Sarah Drury at 9:16 AM

The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility - Charly Joung

In what ways is Walter Benjamin saying that our experience of the "art object" is diminished by the tools of mechanical reproduction (photography and film)?

Benjamin feels that the tools of mechanical reproduction has diminished art's aura via the distance that photographs produce between the viewer and the piece of art. He explains that the uniqueness of experiences through art is lost through the repetitive association in photography.

In what ways is he saying that our experience of the art object is expanded by these new tools?

Benjamin admits that photography is an "important visual activity within itself" and that its strong bond with art is only natural. He also explains that photography, although he feels it diminishes an art object's aura, has made the art object more accessible to the masses and allows the art object to have a chance to gain recognition.

"Technological Reproducibility"

First off, the interpretation of the article really seemed to help make the concepts a lot more clear to me. Benjamin is saying that with the "new technologies" like photography and film, the art and the viewer are now separated by this medium. He says that even though a photograph isn't forgery or a fake that it somewhat robs the original "art" of it's aura. I don't necessarily agree with this. If anything, pictures can show us a different angle or perspective, that we wouldn't have seen without the use of a camera. That kind of intertwines with what Benjamin says about how the "art object" is expanded by film or still photography. He talks about how in a picture the texture or details aren't seen as if they would without the camera between the art and viewer. He does seem to be less pessimistic when it comes to talking about film. He talks about how it sharpens the viewers "optical and auditory impressions." Overall Walter Benjamin seemed to be quite negative on the use of photography and film in the art realm. However he did seem to have some leeway on it's potential positive aspects.

John Curall-"Mixed Body" Performance Reaction

I had the opportunity to go back and see the Performance of "Mixed Body" on Friday. I was very glad I did. It was very interesting and inspiring. I am very interested in the collaboration of technology and performance artist and this was an excellent example of that. Further, I feel like in making it a participatory experience where viewers can interact with the performers and be right on stage with them it added to the experience and made it that much more engaging. I like the abstract nature of the piece which allowed the viewer to make some of his or her own thoughts about the experience. However, I feel like there were very specific statements the artists wanted to make and they were lost a little in the abstractness. I found the dialogue in the music to be very unclear at times. I also thought the facial recognition video was so abstract it was little hard to understand the message or what the video images were representing. All in all the I found the performance to be powerful and engaging. I hope to see more projects like this in the future from these artists or others. I would like to maybe even get the chance to collaborate on a project like this myself some day. At the very least for cool factor alone this performance gets high marks from me!

John Curall-Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

I found the reading this week to be very interesting. The author seems to be saying that the art work is diminished by this reproduction because as it is reproduced it takes away from the quality and spirit or "aura" of the original by taking away some of its uniqueness. Yet at the same time he seems to be saying that the art work is also expanded by this process in the fact that in reproducing it the art work can reach more people. I think these questions come down to the way in which we have been trained to think in a Completely free market capitalist society where we are more worried about "ownership" than benefits of connecting with and inspiring others. In my opinion, a true artist should be more worried about getting his or her message out to as many people as possible rather than worrying about how "special" their piece of art work is. I think art should be about connecting with people and inspiring thought and discussion.