Introduction

We as humans are obsessed with analysing our own existence. We do this in an infinite number of ways. For the purposes of this thesis however, I wish to concentrate on three aspects in particular, what we have called the creative arts, philosophy and technology. It seems that we are obsessed with modifying and rationalising our experience of existence through the development of certain technologies, philosophies and sciences. It could be said that through our rationalising of experience we have lost things of fundamental importance along the way. Perhaps they are not lost? Perhaps they have become hidden.

In the 1930's Walter Benjamin, an eminent thinker and writer of the time, proposed in his essay entitled 'The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936) that with humanity's invention of various different means to mechanically reproduce a piece of art came the loss of a fundamental principle on which traditional art and traditional perception of art is based. He describes this phenomenon as 'the decay of the aura'.


(i) Benjamin's Aura and Mechanical Reproduction

Aura. (pl, auras, aurae):1. a distinctive character or quality around a person or in a place.2. a fine substance coming out of something, especially that supposedly coming from and surrounding the body, which many mystics claim is visible as a faint light (Chambers,1999: 85).

During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity's entire mode of existence. The manner in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well (Benjamin,1999: 216). In 1936 the German cultural critical theorist Walter Benjamin completed an essay entitled 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. This is undoubtedly his most well known text, it is however, often misunderstood. Outlined within this text are Benjamin's observations of new media technologies emerging and developing in the first half of the twentieth century and his critical analogies of the potential consequences such technological advances have upon signifying systems in society, art and authenticity and general perceptions of 'reality'.

Benjamin was deeply concerned with the consequent impact on art of the mass technologies of reproduction. What happens say to an 'immortal' painting-say Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' (1888-9) - when it is mechanically reproduced on postcards, posters, or even postage stamps without regard to its original size, location or history? (Caygill, Coles, Klimowski,1998: 134). As a Jewish socialist living and working in Germany in a time of great social and political upheaval, with two world wars to contend with, Nazism and Fascism coupled with Modernism and upwardly spiralling advances in technology, Benjamin put forward ideas that were to become the building blocks for many critical theorists work thereafter.

The commodification of art under 19th century capitalism, due, in part, to the advent of the printing press, gave rise to a backlash at the end of the 1900s. However, this revival of 'art for art's sake' was to be dampened by the excitement of the untapped potential of a new form of technology, namely photography. With Karl Marx having just completed his critique of the capitalistic mode of production and photography and film technologies continuing to evolve, Walter Benjamin saw that these new media technologies were fundamentally altering relations between society's established signifying systems. He began to notice that these shifts in perception were starting to manifest themselves through a process of simulation, through reproduction.

The most important and influential analogies within the essay are, that works of art are most authentic when embedded within a tradition, in the sense that Van Gogh's original 'Sunflowers' is embedded within the tradition of painting.

The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being embedded in the fabric of tradition (Benjamin,1999: 217). In this sense the work of art possesses what Benjamin refers to as the 'aura', he goes on to express that what he calls the 'auratic tradition' has been lost within the age of mechanical reproduction. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose ‘sense of the universal equality of things' has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction (Benjamin,1999: 217). Artworks in this traditional auratic sense can also be said to play, or to have played a ritual role within the context of tradition.

We know that the earliest artworks originated in the service of ritual - first the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of a work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function (Benjamin,1999: 217). These points are of key importance to establishing an understanding of what Benjamin means by the term 'aura'.

Having expressed this notion of aura, Benjamin goes on to express and conclude that artworks embedded in tradition and ritual have disappeared within an age of the advancing technologies of mechanical reproduction, he refers to this analogy as the 'decay of the aura'. At this point it is important to mention that, for Benjamin, this has happened through mechanical means of reproduction and that manual reproduction has not been a factor contributing to this 'decay'. However within this conclusion it is unclear whether Benjamin believes it to be the creators of the technology, the technology itself or the artists utilising the technology that are to blame for this decay. One thing can be certain about his analogy, that is that he believes mass mechanical reproduction changes people's reactions towards art and their perceptions of what art is. He goes on, within the document, to address the role of the consumer as a contributing factor within his notion of the decay of the aura.

'Namely the desire,' Benjamin writes, 'of the contemporary masses to bring things 'closer' spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of everyday reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction' (Benjamin, 1999: 217). Under this rationale the aura of a traditional work of art has decayed as a result of modern society's desire to consume, to own through reproduction, a copy of an original in the 'auratic' sense, therefore the decay of the aura may be seen as a symptomatic result of an increasing tendency in modern society towards the desire to own something by way of its reproduction, contributing to, consciously or unconsciously, the destruction of tradition and authentic auratic art. Thus, the classic artwork becomes an instrument of consumption within an expanding consumer society.

Benjamin's political ideals interwoven within these analogies can be well illustrated by his reference to Karl Marx and his critique of the capitalistic mode of production. At the start of the preface to the essay Benjamin writes, When Marx undertook his critique of the capitalistic mode of production, this mode was in its infancy. Marx directed his efforts in such a way as to give them prognostic value. He went back to the basic conditions underlying capitalistic production and through his presentation showed what could be expected of capitalism in the future. The result was that one could expect it not only to exploit the proletariat with increasing intensity, but ultimately to create conditions that would make it possible to abolish capitalism itself (Benjamin,1999: 211-212).

As a socialist working within a time of great political turbulence, Benjamin chose to embrace Marx's ideals and his expectation of the capitalism of the future. He embraced the notion that within a capitalist class system, the capitalist mode of production would exploit the aspirations and desires of the proletariat or lower classes and readily assimilated these ideas with mechanical reproduction, similarly he further embraced the ideal that this would eventually create conditions that would make it possible to abolish capitalism itself. With this in mind it may be true to say that Benjamin believed the 'decay of the aura' to be a transitory state where the result of this transition would be the manifestation of his political ideals, and ultimately a state where his ideals of genuine art and human experience would reign true.

Benjamin's rationale in 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' is swamped by his own politics; his pessimism towards mechanical reproduction is fused with the optimism of his own political ideals. This has resulted in a dialectical and far from pragmatic standpoint within Benjamin's analogies.

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