Assignment 013: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he discusses mass production and reproduction of artwork throughout different eras and it’s affect on auras.  Benjamin goes into discussing the idea of reproduction in certain art forms stripping the “creativity and genius” from the work, while in other areas (such as photography) it in fact has no impact, and is crucial to the aura to be felt by a larger audience.

 Production has been crucial in bringing art into the modern world, even though art has technically always been able to be reproduced, mechanical reproduction has brought about a larger variety of what is possible.  Any man could have attempted a replica of any work of art, but until mechanical reproduction nothing could have been exact.  The Greeks used reproduction in founding and stamping.  The only works of art that they were able to reproduce were terra cottas, bronzes, and coins.  While this was definitely a step in the write direction, it does not shine a light to what we are now capable of.

The idea of mechanical reproduction literally brought about photography.  It changed the way art was looked at, and how art was created.  “For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction, photography freed the hand of the most important artistic functions, which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens.”

The idea of aura is best explained when brought into a personal experience.  For me (and seemingly Benjamin as well), aura is most well experienced during an event.  He used the description of mountains, but I have felt the aura rising from a beautiful sunset over the ocean.  The serene, powerful moment that is felt is a piece of art in itself and doesn’t seem like it could ever fully be reproduced.  Except, that is, in photography.  The idea of mechanical reproduction does nothing negative to the photographic world.  The aura felt when looking at a photograph can be felt by however many viewers all over the world, never prohibited by the idea that that photograph may not be the original one.

“In photography it doesn’t matter which print was made, all will have the same aura

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. “

Assignment 012: Time Expanded

Time Expanded

 

“However, some objects and images seem to have extraordinary qualities; they stir up a perceptive intelligibility that oversteps its chronological marker, as if they were giving rise to a dialectic of temporalities and practices. This is how we recognize one of the distinguishing conditions of works of art” (Mah, 13)

This quote begins the first chapter of Time Expanded.  To me I felt like this is really discussing the idea of seeing a piece of art that stops time in your mind, draws you in, and makes you wonder.  With the creation of photography, also came a new meaning to the word “time.”  Photography is able to make a time stamp and in a way freeze bits of the past.  Mah states,  “the photographic image is ontologically bound to an instant of time; it is tied to a specific act of dating, the moment (and the space) in which the image was conceived in physical contiguity with its referent.” (13)  I have always felt that a photograph freezes a moment in time, and Mah reflects this by discussing that photography is forever bound to time because of its ability to record moments.  Photography also deals with a kind of anxiety for the photographer and for the viewer, the idea of “recording time” and making a piece in time forever archived gives new meanings to a photograph. 

            Since the invention of photography the cultural obsession with living for eternity has only grown.  Knowing that a moment can somewhat be frozen in time gives the human mind of feeling that they have gained a certain kind of control over death.  By capturing these moments, death feels postponed, and subconsciously immortality feels probable.  By being internally wired to be conscious of our “biological ticking clock” the human obsession with archiving is forever growing.  In Time Expanded, the different layers of this are openly discussed (photography, television, phones, internet).

“Consequently photography causes us to face this dual meaning: on the one hand, it suspends movement, petrifying the real; and on the other hand, it reveals that immobility is a relative impossibility, because the instant is alive with time and motion of the sort that the eye and mind always experience whenever they are provoked by fixity.  We can therefore say that there is an intelligibility which only photography can give us, or that there is a way of experiencing and thinking that suggests a photographic consistency.” (16)

In chapter three, Ulrich Baer continues with the association between death and photography.   He discusses that from one of (if not the very first) photographs ever taken we sees a connection to death.  In Louis-Jacques-Mandé  Daguerre’s photograph of a man having his boots shined on the Boulevard du Temple we see half of his body out of focus symbolizing he is already half gone, and that much closer to death.             

Walter Benjamin was the first to make this association between death and photography.  He addressed modern concerns of time obsessions and how photography immobilizes the living, thus holding off death.

I had never thought of photography as directly relatable to time, but after this reading I definitely see a strong connection.  Before I only felt that time was relatable in terms of losing track of it while I am taking pictures.  The idea of holding off death, while interesting, is not something I agree with.  The idea of freezing moments, I fully agree with.