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

In his essay, "The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Walter Benjamin talks about a move in perception and its effects in the wake of the advent of film and photography in the twentieth century. He additionally mentions Marx on the capitalist method of creation amid the technological revolution; that talks about what could be normal in the future of the industrialist generation, that is — the profiteering of the lower-class and the disintegration of capitalist enterprise. The impact of the innovative propagation of art by craftsmanship tends to play a critical part in the social and political estimations of the society and fascists. Where government officials utilized the art as a method for developing their political plan on the people of society and controlled the exhibition as to pass on just the messages and strategies helpful to their aspirations. Society saw art as a one of a kind instrument of traditional qualities. The replication of art can contribute in controlling the reliable material in the support of the fascists yet then again, it can be helpful in the upheaval of revolution of politics of art.

He talks about the sense changes inside humanity's whole method of existence; the way we look and see the visual work of art, it is diverse now and its results stay to be resolved.

Benjamin here endeavors to stamp something particular about the cutting edge age or the modern age; of the impacts of modernity on art specifically. Film and photography point to this development. Benjamin composes of the loss of the aura through the mechanical reproduction of art itself. The quality for Benjamin speaks to the creativity and authenticity of a work of art that has not been replicated. A painting has an aura while a photo does not; the photo is a picture of a picture while the painting remains absolutely unique. When a painting is drawn, it can have a historical/emotional or cultural connection between the artist and the subject and what the artist feels about it around then. Be that as it may, then again, the photograph of the subject can be balanced and welded for an alternate audience at various circumstances portraying different implications, losing its unique 'aura'.

The sense of the 'aura' is lost on film and the reproducible picture itself shows a move that we need to assess regardless of whether we see it or not. This shift is historical. What does it mean when the quality/aura is lost? Benjamin reciprocates the loss of the aura as a loss of its meaning and historicity/pastiche (as mentioned by Fredric Jameson in his "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"). How does the mechanically reproduced work of art figure out how to compensate for this void?

As Benjamin proceeds with, a pressure between new methods of perception and the aura emerge. The cameraman, intercedes with what we see, in a way which a painting can never do. It coordinates the eye towards a particular place and a particular story; in the meantime, it is radical and progressive, it is likewise totalitarian. It guides us to a specific side of a story and forgets the other parts. It dulls our observation towards the work of art and presents diversion as a method of reception. The area of anything we may call the aura must be moved into a mythological space; into the religion of virtuoso. This relates back to the cultish characteristic of the aura itself; in its absence, there is a grabbling for a substitution. The magical faction of the original is broken with the loss of the aura, and now everyone can go to an exhibition, a gallery, the theatre or the silver screen. A radical new valuation for art is presented while in the meantime, a radical new method of duplicity and diversion additionally enters.

For Benjamin, the quality is dead and it exists in an unlikely and mysterious space. The object consumes man at the same time man consumes it. Mass utilization delights in this outcome of the loss of the aura. For Benjamin, a separation from the aura is a good thing. The loss of the aura can possibly open up the politicization of art, regardless of whether that opening is adverse or helpful is yet to be determined. In any case, it takes into account to bring political inquiries up with respect to the reproducible image which can be utilized somehow.

However, Benjamin makes it clear that in this new period of mechanical reproduction, the contemplation of a screen and the idea of the film itself has changed such that the individual never again contemplates the film per say; the film contemplates them. Inside the reproducibility of images, there is an increase of submission towards the film itself. All by itself, this denotes a side effect and not a reason for something terrible that is going on.

The impact of control and mass production on a unique work of art or on its 'aura' is the real discourse point for Benjamin in his essay. His predictions of this effect state two points — Firstly, the art will lose its uniqueness and value under the influence of mass production. Also, how this large-scale manufacturing of art can influence and drive the society out of the nerve of capitalism.