I like Walter Benjamin’s explanation of the “aura” of artwork. According to him, aura appears when the artist first creates the artwork with their intended perspectives, but would disappear when the artist’s thought is misunderstood. This may caused due because the duplication of the artwork and viewer’s situations. The duplication of the artwork is merely the copy of the surface of the artwork, and is the blasphemy to the original aura of the artwork. Besides, if the audience views the artwork in a different situation compared to the artist, they may read the meaning behind the artwork differently.
Yet, I disagree with his hostility towards modernization’s effect towards artwork. In the article, Benjamin says he is surprised about some modern artwork like movie.The movie portraits the life of characters, but the actors are not in their normal daily life when making the film – there will be many cameras pointing towards them. This deprives any movie from aura. But I disagree with him on that. For the movie, the directors’ intention is letting the audience touched by the movie, and understand the idea behind the movie. As long as audience touched and understands this intention, this aura is preserved. Thus, in my opinion, movie and the modernization shouldn’t be viewed as a betrayal of artwork.
Conclusively, Benjamin advocates the authenticity and tradition of the artwork, that’s the part I agree the most. However, his objection towards the modernization and industrialization should not be approved.
CCHU9034
Wuyang Du
u3583012
Feb 2, 2021
I would say that one of the most constructive ways of reading Benjamin’s piece on technological reproducibility is with a mental note that he wrote this in the 1930s. Benjamin’s concern on the artworks’ loss of authenticity and aura also rooted in his suspicion of what modernisation might (see p.19). He argues how “the technological reproducibility of the artwork changes the relation of the masses to art” (p.36) and how the tension between the artwork’s cult and exhibition value might lead capitalism into abolition. Instead of seeing it as a black-and-white, right-or-wrong binary, it would be more productive to assess and analyse reasons behind his suspicion and whether or not (or how far have) his suspicions are relevant to date. And if so, which of his concerns are still relevant?