This morning, I read Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in an effort to tackle my reading to-do list. Benjamin’s work has been extremely influential in the realm of Marxist criticism as well as an important source for theorizing various branches of cultural studies. “WAMR” is probably one of his best known essays, and, as I found out, for a good reason. It is an outstanding bit of work that was relevant during Benjamin’s life (he died in 1940) but is even more pertinent today.
The central focus of the essay is the role of “art” in mass society, and one of his key concepts is that art pieces in past cultures were endowed with “aura,” his term to describe originality (as in uniqueness) and a consequently religious or sacred sense. Think, for instance, of ikons, sacred paintings, and, although he doesn’t mention this, relics. Secularized versions of art as aura can be seen in aestheticism. In contrast to this, mechanical reproduction removes aura from what it is we call “art” primarily by a) making something infinitely repeatable and b) separating it from its sacred/ritualistic/privileged context. The key examples he offers are photography and, his primary target, film.
While his thesis makes a lot of sense, I am really interested in what he alludes to later in the essay and how it would apply to our world today. Simply, I would argue that aura is replaced by “popularity” in mass culture. Take, for instance, the madly popular TV shows like Survivor or Desperate Housewives. I think the experience of watching such shows is very much determined by the fact that they are popular. This is Marshall McCluhan’s tribal experience at work. It is not originality that makes a work significant to us; instead, it is its mass appeal. Popularity becomes the key form of affect and emotional value found in the work.
Benjamin says as much in a footnote toward the end of his essay: “mass reproduction is aided especially by the reproduction of the masses . . . . [when] the masses are brought face to face with themselves.” In this case he is referring to vast rallies, political or sporting events, war, the kind of experience typified perhaps by Hitler in front of the teeming audience. In a more subtle form, I wonder if audience polls and ratings are the same thing. The top movie, book, show or whatever is then purchased, read, etc because it evokes a feeling similar to that of aura, the experience of being in the crowd. We are looking at ourselves when we read The Da Vinci Code.
It’s obvious that there is a political consequence to all of this. First of all, we identify simply and purely with an amorphous collective of which the movie star or American idol is a representative. And a simulacral representative at that. Because we become addicted to the “humanity” expressed through the screen but can’t stand the neighbor who we have to experience in real life, as a flesh and blood human being. So there is an inherent contradiction: we align ourselves with a collective but are not personally committed to the members of that collective. Benjamin claims that in this situation, politics replaces ritual. It makes sense then, that our mass culture is a reflection of certain democratic values. The majority is privileged for being the majority – there is nothing else behind it. Unlike an ikon, which points to something larger and historical, mass culture is self-referential.
I think an even more serious consequence is that we only think aesthetics and values in terms of popularity and can no longer understand something like “aura.” This is why avant-gardes have, in many ways, lost their immediacy. That which opposes itself to mass culture can only do so through another form of popularity: elitism. Anything experimental, conceptual, “artistic” (when “art” is opposed to “mass”) only acquires that characteristic if the right people say it is such, if it is read by the right critics and valued by the truly knowledgeable. Whether it is mass or avant-garde, the underlying logic remains the same: a collective experience.
As a consequence, there are certain things we simply cannot think about in a mass culture. Benjamin quotes Leonardo (I believe Da Vinci) who claimed that painting is superior to music because music dies as soon as it is born. One of my professors sees the same principle in theatre: the actor, he always says, is dying in front of you. In our digitized age, nothing actually dies. It is always retrievable, recorded, secure, endlessly repeatable. Thus, the scientist in Videodrome isn’t really “dead” – instead, he exists inside the videos he has made for himself. Thus, we can no longer think death. Of course, we talk about it all the time, and our favorite shows and films are dedicated to dead people (murder, war, disease). But we cannot understand death because our arts don’t contain their own death. I think this is true for a number of things.
Benjamin refers to what he calls the “commonplace” that “real art requires concentration while mass art is absorbed.” Or, you could say that mass art is absorbing, since its affect comes from allowing the individual to be absorbed into a popularized body. But why does real art require concentration? I would say it does so because it destroys what we think we know and forces us into a state of abeyance. Some art leaves us there, while others bring us through it into a confrontation with truth. This is why I think art both requires and demands agency. This is where art is at its most politically efficacious, when it makes us reaffirm reality by thinking it again.
I’m still trying to come to terms with this in relation to our everyday experience, which I referred to in an earlier post.
Paul,
Excellent posting, intriquing (sp?). I remember an exile of French intellectuals from Socialism in the late 70's (post Stalin, Mao, Khmer rouge), disillusioned with Marxism for this very thing. Claiming to love humantiy and yet barbaric to human beings who stood in it's way. They called it "Barbarism with a friendly face" to quote one of the titles of a book.
The idea of aura is facinating. I recently read an artical or book review in Reason about the trend toward exquisite living...which seemed to me to be a reaction to the mass reproduction of our age. An interest in fine wines, cooking, and the growing market for just high quality things. Even some of Martha Stewarts stuff (though a sort of mass produced finery!!).
Is not part of the aura a matter of complexity, depth, quality, genius, even high technical skill that seems so hard to find matched today? I have been reentering the realm of classical music again and have been struck by those enduring qualities that sometimes leaves me in awe.
Dad
Posted by: Dad at June 25, 2005 07:05 PMDad,
The move to exquisite living sounds similar to the Slow Food movement, which is a lifestyle critique to "fast food." Another thing that reminds me of is small press work that is still big among alternative poetry presses. For instance, Copper Canyon Press in this area has poets come in and do some of the manual labor of the printing themselves. Thus, only a few books are created but they are hand made.
While I advocate the idea of "high quality things," it is pretty easy for that to become relegated to the upper echelons of economic and upper class. Simply, one of the problems in a mass culture is not that alternatives don't exist, it is just that the mass (as in majority) can't afford the alternatives. This is why I am curious about ways to resist a "mass mindset" within a "mass budget."
As far as aura is concerned, Benjamin is pretty insistent on the idea of mechanical reproduction in this particular essay. But I don't think that "genius" or "technique" is the same thing. For instance, a CD of mozart symphonies performed by a famous orchastra may be "good" but it doesn't possess the "aura" of the live performance. The same with a copy of the mona lisa and the original. I think we've been having this debate since high school, but I would say that technique, in particular, doesn't necessarily equal quality. I recently listened to some Chopin piano pieces written simply to show off technique that were quite annoying, although technically very difficult. I've been getting into classical music as well and it is a lot of fun.
Posted by: paul at June 27, 2005 02:36 PMI find the aura of classical music is enhanced when I'm listening to it on an iPod with my white Apple iPod headphones.
Posted by: John Totten at June 28, 2005 10:27 AMwhich proves my point. I think. I would say you are an act of resistance to this mass culture. So maybe I'm a little to hard on the Ipod.
Posted by: paul at June 28, 2005 04:33 PMYes I see your point. But I'm not sure I was talking about technique. I agree with you about certain Chopin peices. What I am talking about is genius, beauty, aesthetics, insight, peotic realities when they all come together into something breath taking. That is aura to me. I think your thots on live verses recored and original verses reprints are right on. I am to a point that I would rather listen to a live folk artist than a recorded symphany. But when we go recorded John's ipod idea sounds best!!
Posted by: Dad at June 29, 2005 05:43 AMPaul
I don't think originality and popularity have a corelation. For instance, take Survivor and Seinfeld. I would say that both are/were vastly popular but only one has originality. I think there is a difference between Art and Entertainment and just because art is entertaining does not mean that entertainment is art.
I agree with the Baudrillardian (sp?) concept of the representative but I would argue that this is not popularity but voyeurism. Survivor, American Idol, reality tv and to an extent Desperate Housewives are all voyeuristic pursuits. This doesn't really change the popularity idea, as now voyeurism is popular and people are watching or indulging because it is popular.
Anyways, it sounds dang interesting.
Posted by: ARoss at June 30, 2005 01:03 PMDad, I think what you mean by "aura" is the experiential power of the work as a whole. That is, the "affect." Benjamin here, I believe, is talking about a particular _type_ of affect which has less to do with the aesthetic value as a whole and more to do with "uniqueness." Hence, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre vs the Mona Lisa on the dentist's wall. You could make the valuable argument that the experience of the work is not the same because the reproduction changes the form. OK. But lets assume it doesn't change the form, that it is a fantastic reproduction hand-painted by some professional artist. It would still lack the aura of the original Da Vinci, in Benjamins terms. This is not the case with a photo, since it is infinitely reproducable: in fact, it's very nature is as a reproduction.
Which shed's light on your comment, Andy, on originality and popularity. My point is not that survivor is just as original (in the sense of creative) as seinfeld although both are popular. My point is that the _particular_ characteristic "popularity" seems to be a replacement for the _particular_ affect "aura" in the Benjamin sense. And I want to know the consequences of this. I think Baudrillard's writing about the simulacra is in fact much in line with Benjamin here. I'm not as familiar with his thoughts on representation, though.
As an aside, a few days after I read this I read Marshall Mccluhans "The Medium is the Massage," and he makes this really interesting distinction between the enlightment/nineteenth century "public," and the (post)modern/twentieth century "mass." A public is a collection of individuals with different perspectives, beliefs, ideas, etc, whereas a mass is a homogenous whole that is produced by contemporary media. I think the key difference is agency.
Posted by: paul at June 30, 2005 02:24 PM