The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

"We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”

this is such an interesting way to begin this article, especially if you are evaulating these ideas in terms of digital. digital now is doing exactly what this quote says. there is such a firestorm in the photoworld about which is better, more authentic, more truly art, traditional or digital process. digital is the great innovation that is challenging our notions of what photography is and can be. digital technology is challeging traditional notions of media and medium and how those things relate to the "art" of an object and it's relationship to the process and the concept of an original. we are in this flux right now. personally i think this is a great thing. if we aren't challenging the notions are art and media and all those things then perhaps we are asleep as artists....


"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership."

why does this matter according to this article?
• The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.
• The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.
• Essentially object autority rests on the existence of a varifiable original

The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition, ie the object’s “aura”

this is a fundimental consideration of conceptual art in the first place. where does the authentic experience that an artist is trying to convey exist? is it in the object? is it the object just a middle man? is it about process? and this writer's idea seems to link the value of an object as a reproduction ininstricably to it's original. digital technology makes the endless reproduction possible. and those reproductions aren't just "reproductions" but exact duplicates of the thing itself. so does the value of any of these things shift when we cannot see or could possibly even confuse a digital copy of a photo from its digitally created original? it begs the question of both aura and authenticity. do either of these things exist or matter in terms of consumption by a viewer? or is it about my initial photo because my experienctial link to it makes that first digital file greater somehow? more authentic? i have no idea. my general thought on this is that it doesn't matter at all where video art or digital images are concerned. of course a hand painted reproduction of a painting is different, just as a photo of a painting just isn't the same. offset printed versions of traditional b&w photos are different from the originals. to me that's not about the artist's experience but rather about changing media and about how the audience gets to view the material especially if that viewing is outside of the artist's intent in the first place.


" In the same way today, by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental. This
much is certain: today photography and the film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function.
In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance. It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the
cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face."

so photos must have people in them to contain an aura and therefore be high art? facinating. it's about the object represented or i guess in this case the link to "tradition" ie humanity by direct reference? again, facinating. I'm way too much into the intent of the artist and the concept behind any art object to buy this argument. but it is interesting to think about.


"What matters is that the part is acted not for an audience but for a mechanical contrivance = no aura = no authentic experience because of disconnect between artist/object and audience"

how do you determine whe this disconnect occurs? as an artist am i supposed to evaluate this and somehow figure out how to overcome this problem? or maybe this has nothing to do with the potential fault of new media and is rather about the artist's inablity to choose the best media for his/her idea to come across. did that duplicate of my digital photo that looks exactly the same not resonate with my audience because they are getting a minupulated copy rather than my original raw file? or is it really about the disconnect is individual to audience members and individual to my ability to express what i needed to express in that image? hmmmm


“letters to the editor.” = Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer."

i totally love this comment. it's such an early thought on some of the problems we have with convergence culture. where does it end? if you have an audience for your videos or photos or writings online are you in fact an artist in that realm? are you just a hack because of the format? are you just looking at media as utilitarian and somehow deminishing it? it's sorta like the argument that everybody thinks they are a photographer if they pick up a point and shoot and suddenly have photos that look okay......

"Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance
from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art."

so he's married to the idea of photograph as truth. why is that picture more "true" to reality than painting? the photographer framed the photo and had some sort of intent for his viewers. tricks of light and happy accidents in the darkroom can also change the way that cut into reality is represented to us.

there are huge arguments in philosophy about the nature of reality and if it is even possible for us to ever be sure that what we percieve is anythign like reality. There is scenario that (Kant?) posits that comments on this idea. He says suppose an elephant is killed and divided among groups of people who have never seen an elephant. would they look at the foot and somehow manage to guess the entire beast based on this single view or would they guess about it based on what they already know. Kant's arguement of course is that with no way of seeing an elephant whole that the people would inevidably have different interpretations of what the whole thing was and looked like. it would be their reality based on what they saw but it wouldnt' be the real thing. it's arguable that photos are exactly like this. if you've ever tried to figure out how to photograph something to convey just the idea of a place or thing for someone who has never seen it, you feel like you could never take enough photos to get the idea across. i've certianly felt that way. so i ramble about whether i buy the idea of photo as truth. it's arguably the artist's truth..but what does that mean for me as a viewer?


"Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art."
so why is this a bad thing? why do we always want to assume that somehow greater audience means less meaningful, less thoughtful art? kitsch or avant-garde? ivory tower or mass consumption? why does artistic merritt have to be degraded by its ability to be digested when we often want to communicate well as well as uniquely? we talk often about the democritization of art as a good thing. why do we have to go through all these contortions over the media and it's accessiblity and what that means for a piece of work? and its interesting to watch digital media be processed through these concerns and through a traditional lens. we wind up assessing, resisiting, then reassessing with each new technology. maybe art is just the ultimate example of our resistance to change.