Quotes - Walter Benjamin - “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity. Chemical analyses of the patina of a bronze can help to establish this, as does the proof that a given manuscript of the Middle Ages stems from an archive of the fifteenth century. The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical – and, of course, not only technical – reproducibility. Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis-à-vis technical reproduction.

Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin's major argument on why mechanical reproduction has destroyed the authority of art. Without the authenticity of an original copy, there is nor origin—thus no authority—from which the object's meaning stems. All reproduced versions of the object or media are just copies. Copies which are all the same. Due to a lack of uniqueness, this reproduction destroys the object's inherent artistic value. There is no way to give every copy of the object the same significance. Its uniqueness is destroyed by multitude. There is then, in human eyes, no “original” copy. With earlier reproduction, reproduced objects were “forgeries”, but this is not so with mechanical reproduction. Each copy is too perfect. As so many can be produced, there is no one original.

By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring common place milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action. 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 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.

Walter Benjamin

Benjamin's argument that the audience identifies with the camera and its manipulations through film. Similar to psychoanalysis, Benjamin argues that the camera (and film in general) interacts with the subconscious of humanity. The camera is a medium through which a person observes the world of film. It truly allows vicarious projection for the viewer. Through the camera, the entire world is reshaped to something more interesting and appealing. A process which Benjamin believes is purely political. The entire world can be re-framed through the camera. How the camera creates the world is purely political due to its influence and manipulations. The camera defines the world and how one is to live their life within it. A power which Benjamin believes can be used for ideological purposes.

For centuries a small number of writers were confronted by many thousands of readers. This changed toward the end of the last century. With the increasing extension of the press, which kept placing new political, religious, scientific, professional, and local organs before the readers, an increasing number of readers became writers – at first, occasional ones. It began with the daily press opening to its readers space for “letters to the editor.” And today there is hardly a gainfully employed European who could not, in principle, find an opportunity to publish somewhere or other comments on his work, grievances, documentary reports, or that sort of thing. Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character.

Walter Benjamin

Here Walter Benjamin argues how reproduction has destroyed economic, cultural, and intellectual divides in society. Mass reproduction has diminished the significance of the “author” as an authority. Without a power unique to the author (being published), anyone can become an author. Being a Marxist, Benjamin's argument is that this use of industry has democraticized society towards a new system. Now anyone has the powers as author or any other authority once had. This reflects Benjamin's overall point about how mass reproduction has destroyed the source of authority. There is no longer one class which rules another.