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Abstract
This paper argues that Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility” provides a rich analytic framework for understanding how the many dimensions of aesthetic experience interact both with each other and with social and political life more broadly. The heart of that framework is a structural theory of the relation of six core aesthetic concepts. With Benjamin’s systematic analysis in hand, the paper advances an argument about the manifestation of those core aspects and their interrelation in our own historical moment. The aim of the paper is thus to extract a rich and comprehensive theory of the work of art from Benjamin’s essay and to indicate the power of this theory through its continuing ability to illuminate the dense imbrication of aesthetics and politics.
Keywords:
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Notes
1 In what follows, references to the essay are drawn from Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” This is a translation of the second version of the text – the most complete one. More recent translations of the essay adhere more closely to the German title, which is rendered “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.” When citing the title of the essay, we prefer the latter translation. When discussing the contents of the essay, however, we will adopt the language of “mechanical” rather than “technical” reproduction. This emphasizes the important differences between the primarily mechanical processes that attract Benjamin’s attention and the largely digital nature of the reproduction and distribution of texts and images that we address below.
2 We are not alone, of course, in emphasizing the systematic elements of Benjamin’s analyses, which are brought out elegantly in González and Sarlo; Ross.
3 For a thorough analysis of the diverse meanings of “aesthetics,” see Welsch. On the many meanings of “politics,” see, for example, Deranty, “En quels sens le travail vivant est-il une catégorie politique?” On the various meanings of “aestheticized politics,” see, for example, Jay; Simons; Rockhill.
4 The heart of Benjamin’s analysis of the production or creation of works of art is found in “Work of Art” 218–20, 228–30.
5 Ibid. 219–20.
6 See especially ibid. 218–19, 225–27.
7 Ibid. 221.
8 See, in particular, ibid. 220–21.
9 Ibid. 234.
10 Benjamin’s most sustained comments on the masses come at ibid. 251 n. 21.
11 Ibid. 222.
12 See, in particular, ibid. 322–23.
13 See especially ibid. 239.
14 Ibid. 240.
15 He remarks on both the “secular cult of beauty” (ibid. 224) and on the masses’ more progressive judgments of cinema than painting (ibid. 231).
16 On mimesis in art, see especially ibid. 223, 235–36.
17 Ibid. 237, 249–50 n. 17.
18 See Ross.
19 Since our interest lies in extracting a heuristic tool from Benjamin’s analysis, we forgo here a detailed exposition of each of the relations marked out in the Artwork essay. For readers who might be interested in charting those functional relations throughout the text, we will simply list them here. Benjamin describes the determinative role played by the process of production: on ontology at 220–21 and 224; on value at 225 and 241; on need at 237; on aisthesis at 235–36; on mimesis at 230; on judgment at 232–34; on audience at 228–29, 231, and 234; and on the art form at 218–21 and 244 n. 7. The influence of the art form: on function at 225; on value at 225–26, 240, and 251 n. 21; on mimesis at 233, 235–36, and 249 n. 16; on judgment at 231 and 234; on audience at 234 and 250 n. 17; on aisthesis at 235–36; on attitude at 239 and 240; on ontology at 223; on participation at 240; and on production at 244 n. 7. The determinative role of ontology: on audience at 220–21, 223, and 225; on function at 221 and 224; on value at 225 and 244 n. 6; on judgment at 244 n. 6; and on mimesis at 223. The influence of audience: on aisthesis at 223; on ontology at 223; on value at 225; on production at 228–29, 231, and 251 n. 21; on function at 239–41; on art form at 234–35 and 250 n. 17; and on attitude at 239. The influence of value: on function at 223, 224, 226–27, and 243 n. 5; on art form at 225–26 and 233; on audience at 225; and on ontology at 226. The influence of aisthesis: on art form at 222; on audience at 223; on function at 222; and on mimesis at 223. The influence of aesthetic attitude: on art form at 237, 239, and 240; on audience at 239; on function at 223–24 and 239–40; on participation at 239–40; and on aisthesis at 240. The influence of the mode of participation: on attitude at 240; on audience at 239–40; and on aisthesis at 240. The influence of judgment: on audience at 231 and on art form at 231 and 234. The influence of the art form on ontology at 223 and participation at 240, and the influence of need on aesthetic attitude, production, and art form at 237. Finally, he addresses the influence of mimesis on ontology and aisthesis at 223.
20 Ferris.
21 Interpretations that foreground aura and ontology include, for example, Crimp; Ziarek; Jaeger. Hansen argues that Benjamin’s understanding of aura cannot be restricted to a narrow conception of aesthetics; our understanding of the conceptual constellation that makes up Benjamin’s aesthetic theory accords with the thrust of her analysis. For interpretations that emphasize the technology of production, see Caygill 79–116; Ferris 104–10.
22 See, for instance, Rancière, Politics of Aesthetics. It is possible to extract a comparable analytical framework, itself articulated around core, historically dependent distinctions, from the aesthetic writings of Rancière. See Deranty, “Regimes of the Arts.”
23 That does not mean, of course, that painting no longer makes any sense, that artists who paint have become utterly uninteresting, and so forth. As in Benjamin’s analysis, to speak of “paradigmatic” art forms is to focus on the specific art form that at a given time best potentializes the possibilities of a historical moment.
24 If we pursue Benjamin’s historical analysis in relation to the craft analogy he uses to explain the difference between pre-industrial and industrial regimes, we might say that just as the magician symbolized the first, and the surgeon the second, the hawker is a good emblem of our time (see Benjamin, “Work of Art” 233): she creates a space in which customers are attracted to come through the very assemblage of commodities there, some of which she might have made, others she might have acquired elsewhere.
25 Bourriaud writes:
The form of an artwork issues from a negotiation with the intelligible, which is bequeathed to us. Through it, the artist embarks upon a dialogue. The artistic practice thus resides in the invention of relations between consciousness [sic]. Each particular artwork is a proposal to live in a shared world, and the work of every artist is a bundle of relations with the world, giving rise to other relations, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. (Relational Aesthetics 22)
26 Quoted in ibid. 19. See also idem, Postproduction 18.
27 Idem, The Radicant 22.
28 Thus realizing the Duchampian motto of the spectator (regardeur) as co-creator of the artwork. See also Rancière, Emancipated Spectator.
29 Bourriaud, Postproduction 23; translation modified.
30 Idem, The Radicant 160. In this regard, our understanding of curation echoes Nick Srnicek’s analysis of “platforms.” See Srnicek.
31 Hardt and Negri 100.
32 Marx 699–712.
33 See a neat summary in Negri.
34 See Barss Part 3.
35 Citton 165–87.
36 Ibid. 108–12. See also Zuboff.
37 Citton 145; emphasis in original, translation modified.
38 That Twitter boasts 320 million active monthly users but also has approximately 300 million users without a single follower succinctly illustrates the idea that staging a curatorial space does not itself generate a corresponding community of interest. See Muruganandam.
39 Citton 74.
40 It is this sense that we should interpret Bourriaud’s claim that “It is the socius, i.e., all the channels that distribute information and products, that is the true exhibition site for artists of the current generation” (Postproduction 71).
41 See, for example, Groys; Ventzislavov; Filipovic.
42 See Hogan; Zhao et al.
43 For a detailed analysis of how the content of the “We Are All Khaled Said” page played a decisive role in forming the community of dissent at the heart of the Egyptian Revolution, see Alaimo.