Choose an album or an EP – not a single or song – and write a 1500-2000 word review and discuss its cultural and/or business dimensions, using the ideas we have read
about and discussed in class so far. Explain how the week’s themes have played a role in shaping the release and your experience of it. Feel free to have fun writing the piece.
It does not need to be dry and academic – write as though you are submitting it to your favorite music blog, website, or magazine to be published.
You must cite at least three class readings and/or items we have watched/listened to in class, AND at least three out-of-class items. Format (e.g. APA vs Chicago) is
unimportant, as long as you stick to the word count, cite readings directly in the text, include a works cited section (this does not count for word count), and follow proper
spelling, grammar, and punctuation (where appropriate).
At the top of your paper write whatever media outlet you are writing this for: magazine, newspaper, blog, website, podcast, YouTube channel, etc.
Walter Benjamin
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/g…
Walter Benjamin (1936)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Source: UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television;
Translated: by Harry Zohn;
Published: by Schocken/Random House, ed. by Hannah Arendt;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden 1998; proofed and corrected Feb. 2005.
“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times
very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things
was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our
techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and
habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the
Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used
to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither
matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. 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.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931
Le Conquete de l’ubiquite
Preface
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 which would make it possible to abolish capitalism
itself.
The transformation of the superstructure, which takes place far more slowly than that of the
substructure, has taken more than half a century to manifest in all areas of culture the change in the
conditions of production. Only today can it be indicated what form this has taken. Certain prognostic
requirements should be met by these statements. However, theses about the art of the proletariat after its
assumption of power or about the art of a classless society would have less bearing on these demands than
theses about the developmental tendencies of art under present conditions of production. Their dialectic is
no less noticeable in the superstructure than in the economy. It would therefore be wrong to
underestimate the value of such theses as a weapon. They brush aside a number of outmoded concepts,
such as creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery – concepts whose uncontrolled (and at present
almost uncontrollable) application would lead to a processing of data in the Fascist sense. The concepts
which are introduced into the theory of art in what follows differ from the more familiar terms in that they
are completely useless for the purposes of Fascism. They are, on the other hand, useful for the formulation
of revolutionary demands in the politics of art.
I
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In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by
men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and,
finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain. Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however,
represents something new. Historically, it advanced intermittently and in leaps at long intervals, but with
accelerated intensity. The Greeks knew only two procedures of technically reproducing works of art:
founding and stamping. Bronzes, terra cottas, and coins were the only art works which they could produce
in quantity. All others were unique and could not be mechanically reproduced. With the woodcut graphic
art became mechanically reproducible for the first time, long before script became reproducible by print.
The enormous changes which printing, the mechanical reproduction of writing, has brought about in
literature are a familiar story. However, within the phenomenon which we are here examining from the
perspective of world history, print is merely a special, though particularly important, case. During the
Middle Ages engraving and etching were added to the woodcut; at the beginning of the nineteenth century
lithography made its appearance. With lithography the technique of reproduction reached an essentially
new stage. This much more direct process was distinguished by the tracing of the design on a stone rather
than its incision on a block of wood or its etching on a copperplate and permitted graphic art for the first
time to put its products on the market, not only in large numbers as hitherto, but also in daily changing
forms. Lithography enabled graphic art to illustrate everyday life, and it began to keep pace with printing.
But only a few decades after its invention, lithography was surpassed by photography. 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. Since the eye perceives more swiftly than
the hand can draw, the process of pictorial reproduction was accelerated so enormously that it could keep
pace with speech. A film operator shooting a scene in the studio captures the images at the speed of an
actor’s speech. Just as lithography virtually implied the illustrated newspaper, so did photography
foreshadow the sound film. The technical reproduction of sound was tackled at the end of the last century.
These convergent endeavors made predictable a situation which Paul Valery pointed up in this sentence:
“Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a
minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a
simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.”
Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce all
transmitted works of art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public; it
also had captured a place of its own among the artistic processes. For the study of this standard nothing is
more revealing than the nature of the repercussions that these two different manifestations – the
reproduction of works of art and the art of the film – have had on art in its traditional form.
II
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. The traces of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is
impossible to perform on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be
traced from the situation of the original.
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
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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. The reason is twofold. First, process reproduction is more independent of the original than
manual reproduction. For example, in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of
the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and
chooses its angle at will. And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as
enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision. Secondly, technical
reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original
itself. Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a photograph or a
phonograph record. The cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral
production, performed in an auditorium or in the open air, resounds in the drawing room.
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. This holds not only for the art work
but also, for instance, for a landscape which passes in review before the spectator in a movie. In the case of
the art object, a most sensitive nucleus – namely, its authenticity – is interfered with whereas no natural
object is vulnerable on that score. 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. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by
reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized when the
historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.
One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in
the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose
significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction
detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes
a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or
listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a
tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of
mankind. Both processes are intimately connected with the contemporary mass movements. Their most
powerful agent is the film. Its social significance, particularly in its most positive form, is inconceivable
without its destructive, cathartic aspect, that is, the liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural
heritage. This phenomenon is most palpable in the great historical films. It extends to ever new positions.
In 1927 Abel Gance exclaimed enthusiastically:
“Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven will make films… all legends, all mythologies and all myths, all founders
of religion, and the very religions… await their exposed resurrection, and the heroes crowd each other at the
gate.”
Presumably without intending it, he issued an invitation to a far-reaching liquidation.
III
During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode
of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is
accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well. The fifth century,
with its great shifts of population, saw the birth of the late Roman art industry and the Vienna Genesis,
and there developed not only an art different from that of antiquity but also a new kind of perception. The
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scholars of the Viennese school, Riegl and Wickhoff, who resisted the weight of classical tradition under
which these later art forms had been buried, were the first to draw conclusions from them concerning the
organization of perception at the time. However far-reaching their insight, these scholars limited
themselves to showing the significant, formal hallmark which characterized perception in late Roman
times. They did not attempt – and, perhaps, saw no way – to show the social transformations expressed by
these changes of perception. The conditions for an analogous insight are more favorable in the present.
And if changes in the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is
possible to show its social causes.
The concept of aura which was proposed above with reference to historical objects may usefully be
illustrated with reference to the aura of natural ones. We define the aura of the latter as the unique
phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow
with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you
experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social
bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the
increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life. Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to
bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the
uniqueness of every 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. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered
by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and
permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. 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. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in
the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality
is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.
IV
The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This
tradition itself is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable. An ancient statue of Venus, for example,
stood in a different traditional context with the Greeks, who made it an object of veneration, than with the
clerics of the Middle Ages, who viewed it as an ominous idol. Both of them, however, were equally
confronted with its uniqueness, that is, its aura. Originally the contextual integration of art in tradition
found its expression in the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual –
first the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference
to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the
“authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis,
however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of
beauty. The secular cult of beauty, developed during the Renaissance and prevailing for three centuries,
clearly showed that ritualistic basis in its decline and the first deep crisis which befell it. With the advent of
the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism,
art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later. At the time, art reacted with
the doctrine of l’art pour l’art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called a
negative theology in the form of the idea of “pure” art, which not only denied any social function of art but
also any categorizing by subject matter. (In poetry, Mallarme was the first to take this position.)
An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they
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lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction
emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work
of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for
example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the
instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is
reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.
V
Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is
on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with
ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not
their being on view. The elk portrayed by the man of the Stone Age on the walls of his cave was an
instrument of magic. He did expose it to his fellow men, but in the main it was meant for the spirits. Today
the cult value would seem to demand that the work of art remain hidden. Certain statues of gods are
accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain Madonnas remain covered nearly all year round; certain
sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level. With the emancipation of
the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products. It is
easier to exhibit a portrait bust that can be sent here and there than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that
has its fixed place in the interior of a temple. The same holds for the painting as against the mosaic or
fresco that preceded it. And even though the public presentability of a mass originally may have been just
as great as that of a symphony, the latter originated at the moment when its public presentability promised
to surpass that of the mass.
With the different methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to
such an extent that the quantitative shift between its two poles turned into a qualitative transformation of
its nature. This is comparable to the situation of the work of art in prehistoric times when, by the absolute
emphasis on its cult value, it was, first and foremost, an instrument of magic. Only later did it come to be
recognized as a work of art. 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.
VI
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. This is what constitutes their
melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition
value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value. To have pinpointed this new stage
constitutes the incomparable significance of Atget, who, around 1900, took photographs of deserted Paris
streets. It has quite justly been said of him that he photographed them like scenes of crime. The scene of a
crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence. With Atget,
photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political
significance. They demand a specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to
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them. They stir the viewer; he feels challenged by them in a new way. At the same time picture magazines
begin to put up signposts for him, right ones or wrong ones, no matter. For the first time, captions have
become obligatory. And it is clear that they have an altogether different character than the title of a
painting. The directives which the captions give to those looking at pictures in illustrated magazines soon
become even more explicit and more imperative in the film where the meaning of each single picture
appears to be prescribed by the sequence of all preceding ones.
VII
The nineteenth-century dispute as to the artistic value of painting versus photography today seems devious
and confused. This does not diminish its importance, however; if anything, it underlines it. The dispute
was in fact the symptom of a historical transformation the universal impact of which was not realized by
either of the rivals. When the age of mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in cult, the
semblance of its autonomy disappeared forever. The resulting change in the function of art transcended
the perspective of the century; for a long time it even escaped that of the twentieth century, which
experienced the development of the film. Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of
whether photography is an art. The primary question – whether the very invention of photography had not
transformed the entire nature of art – was not raised. Soon the film theoreticians asked the same
ill-considered question with regard to the film. But the difficulties which photography caused traditional
aesthetics were mere child’s play as compared to those raised by the film. Whence the insensitive and
forced character of early theories of the film. Abel Gance, for instance, compares the film with hieroglyphs:
“Here, by a remarkable regression, we have come back to the level of expression of the Egyptians …
Pictorial language has not yet matured because our eyes have not yet adjusted to it. There is as yet
insufficient respect for, insufficient cult of, what it expresses.” Or, in the words of Séverin-Mars: “What art
has been granted a dream more poetical and more real at the same time! Approached in this fashion the
film might represent an incomparable means of expression. Only the most high-minded persons, in the
most perfect and mysterious moments of their lives, should be allowed to enter its ambience.” Alexandre
Arnoux concludes his fantasy about the silent film with the question: “Do not all the bold descriptions we
have given amount to the definition of prayer?” It is instructive to note how their desire to class the film
among the “arts” forces these theoreticians to read ritual elements into it – with a striking lack of
discretion. Yet when these speculations were published, films like L’Opinion publique and The Gold Rush
had already appeared. This, however, did not keep Abel Gance from adducing hieroglyphs for purposes of
comparison, nor Séverin-Mars from speaking of the film as one might speak of paintings by Fra Angelico.
Characteristically, even today ultrareactionary authors give the film a similar contextual significance – if
not an outright sacred one, then at least a supernatural one. Commenting on Max Reinhardt’s film version
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Werfel states that undoubtedly it was the sterile copying of the exterior
world with its streets, interiors, railroad stations, restaurants, motorcars, and beaches which until now had
obstructed the elevation of the film to the realm of art. “The film has not yet realized its true meaning, its
real possibilities … these consist in its unique faculty to express by natural means and with incomparable
persuasiveness all that is fairylike, marvelous, supernatural.”
VIII
The artistic performance of a stage actor is definitely presented to the public by the actor in person; that of
the screen actor, however, is presented by a camera, with a twofold consequence. The camera that presents
the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole.
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Guided by the cameraman, the camera continually changes its position with respect to the performance.
The sequence of positional views which the editor composes from the material supplied him constitutes
the completed film. It comprises certain factors of movement which are in reality those of the camera, not
to mention special camera angles, close-ups, etc. Hence, the performance of the actor is subjected to a
series of optical tests. This is the first consequence of the fact that the actor’s performance is presented by
means of a camera. Also, the film actor lacks the opportunity of the stage actor to adjust to the audience
during his performance, since he does not present his performance to the audience in person. This permits
the audience to take the position of a critic, without experiencing any personal contact with the actor. The
audience’s identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently the
audience takes the position of the camera; its approach is that of testing. This is not the approach to which
cult values may be exposed.
IX
For the film, what matters primarily is that the actor represents himself to the public before the camera,
rather than representing someone else. One of the first to sense the actor’s metamorphosis by this form of
testing was Pirandello. Though his remarks on the subject in his novel Si Gira were limited to the negative
aspects of the question and to the silent film only, this hardly impairs their validity. For in this respect, the
sound film did not change anything essential. What matters is that the part is acted not for an audience but
for a mechanical contrivance – in the case of the sound film, for two of them. “The film actor,” wrote
Pirandello, “feels as if in exile – exiled not only from the stage but also from himself. With a vague sense of
discomfort he feels inexplicable emptiness: his body loses its corporeality, it evaporates, it is deprived of
reality, life, voice, and the noises caused by his moving about, in order to be changed into a mute image,
flickering an instant on the screen, then vanishing into silence …. The projector will play with his shadow
before the public, and he himself must be content to play before the camera.” This situation might also be
characterized as follows: for the first time – and this is the effect of the film – man has to operate with his
whole living person, yet forgoing its aura. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The
aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the
actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public.
Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.
It is not surprising that it should be a dramatist such as Pirandello who, in characterizing the film,
inadvertently touches on the very crisis in which we see the theater. Any thorough study proves that there
is indeed no greater contrast than that of the stage play to a work of art that is completely subject to or, like
the film, founded in, mechanical reproduction. Experts have long recognized that in the film “the greatest
effects are almost always obtained by ‘acting’ as little as possible … ” In 1932 Rudolf Arnheim saw “the
latest trend … in treating the actor as a stage prop chosen for its characteristics and… inserted at the
proper place.” With this idea something else is closely connected. The stage actor identifies himself with
the character of his role. The film actor very often is denied this opportunity. His creation is by no means
all of a piece; it is composed of many separate performances. Besides certain fortuitous considerations,
such as cost of studio, availability of fellow players, décor, etc., there are elementary necessities of
equipment that split the actor’s work into a series of mountable episodes. In particular, lighting and its
installation require the presentation of an event that, on the screen, unfolds as a rapid and unified scene,
in a sequence of separate shootings which may take hours at the studio; not to mention more obvious
montage. Thus a jump from the window can be shot in the studio as a jump from a scaffold, and the
ensuing flight, if need be, can be shot weeks later when outdoor scenes are taken. Far more paradoxical
cases can easily be construed. Let us assume that an actor is supposed to be startled by a knock at the door.
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If his reaction is not satisfactory, the director can resort to an expedient: when the actor happens to be at
the studio again he has a shot fired behind him without his being forewarned of it. The frightened reaction
can be shot now and be cut into the screen version. Nothing more strikingly shows that art has left the
realm of the “beautiful semblance” which, so far, had been taken to be the only sphere where art could
thrive.
X
The feeling of strangeness that overcomes the actor before the camera, as Pirandello describes it, is
basically of the same kind as the estrangement felt before one’s own image in the mirror. But now the
reflected image has become separable, transportable. And where is it transported? Before the public. Never
for a moment does the screen actor cease to be conscious of this fact. While facing the camera he knows
that ultimately he will face the public, the consumers who constitute the market. This market, where he
offers not only his labor but also his whole self, his heart and soul, is beyond his reach. During the shooting
he has as little contact with it as any article made in a factory. This may contribute to that oppression, that
new anxiety which, according to Pirandello, grips the actor before the camera. The film responds to the
shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the “personality” outside the studio. The cult of the
movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the
“spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity. So long as the movie-makers’ capital sets the
fashion, as a rule no other revolutionary merit can be accredited to today’s film than the promotion of a
revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art. We do not deny that in some cases today’s films can
also promote revolutionary criticism of social conditions, even of the distribution of property. However,
our present study is no more specifically concerned with this than is the film production of Western
Europe.
It is inherent in the technique of the film as well as that of sports that everybody