I like the word ‘aura’ that used by Benjamin, which generally means an artistic tissue of the unique distance between identity and art. Benjamin wrote critically in his article and he is biased to the negative side brought by technological reproducibility. He said ‘All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point. That one point is war’. I want to discuss aura. ‘Film divorce the aura’ seems a bit absolute. Though the camera substitutes the audience, new distance emerges between audience and the screen. Aura isn’t divorced, it turns into thousands of new auras. Every identity can feel an unique aura of the thing described by film, because they have understanding of the film to different depth, which means they have different distance to the screen. Some are distracted, feeling free to relax themselves, some are immersed, finding their ego through the image-repertoire. So, I think the present masses desire to get closer to things indeed, but they still get closer to things through aura, a new kind of aura.
Mao Yue Yang 3035770549
Benjamin’s definition of “aura” refers to its “authenticity”, the “here and now of the artwork” (p.22), “a strange tissue of space and time: the unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be” (p.23), “its embeddedness in the context of tradition” (p.24). From the way you are using “aura” in your description, I got the sense that it referred more to perception or interpretation. On the other hand, your point about how people perceive artwork differently resonates with Benjamin’s point on how the “[Q]uantity has been transformed into quality: the greatly increased mass of participants has produced a different kind of participation” (p.39) was then reinforced by his argument on “distraction and concentration” (p.39-40) where “[A] person who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it; … the distracted masses absorb the work of art into themselves” (p.40). Benjamin is extremely concerned about this, especially how the relationship with its artist and audience shifted. You pointed out that Benjamin is biased to the negative side of technological reproducibility. Putting yourself in his shoes, do you think his concern is valid?