Technology, Culture, History
In Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, he discusses the effects that mechanical reproduction has on works of art. The overall feeling of Benjamin’s essay is how the ability to reproduce art could lead to the democratisation of art; the idea that it can be within anyone’s reach, where every person has the right to engage in the arts. Benjamin (1986) did not fail to mention that art has always been reproducible, that “Manmade artefacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters diffusing their works, and, finally by third parties in the pursuit of gain.” (Benjamin, 1986, p.218). However, the foremost significance of his essay was how mechanical reproduction presents us with something new, something that is less based on ‘ritual’ but based on another practice – politics.
Benjamin (1986) believed that the reproduction of art and thus making art accessible to everyone would “lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition” (Benjamin, 1986, p.221); this tradition being the idea that only the elite can view and enjoy art. The digital age, with the growing availability of technological devices such as cameras, computers and printers, enhances the access to artistic resource. Everyone now has the same opportunity to view, contemplate and create art – ‘shattering’ the barrier of conventional trends in which involvement in the arts was predominantly the domain of the higher social classes, implying that digital technologies can democratise the arts. This notion is reinforced in Benjamin’s essay when he identified that, “The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition.” (Benjamin, 1986, p.221).
Benjamin (1986) raises the issue of authorship and the uniqueness of a piece of art in his essay when he indicated, “that which withers in the age of the mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” (Benjamin, 1986, p.221). Benjamin discusses the concept of authenticity of a work of art as it applies to reproduction, implying that art that was not intended to be mechanically reproduced in printed form, immediately loses its transcendent significance or “its unique existence” (Benjamin, 1986, p.220) once it is removed from its physical and spatial context such as a cathedral, museum or gallery etc. Benjamin (1986) points out that, “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” (Benjamin, 1986, p.220). He implied that in the age of mechanical and digital reproduction, the ‘original’ art is lost beneath the endless reproductions of itself. In this effect, this statement has brought fourth, to some, the illusion that digital art – whose presence of a physical unique original, does not exist in the three dimensional sphere – is less authentic, valuable, or worthy than that of traditionally created art.
In Benjamin’s study of Baudelaire, written a few years after ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, he touches back on the notions of aura and discusses in a subtle manner that which describes his extended opinion of the aura. He testified, “Experience of the aura thus rests on the transposition of a response common in human relationships to the relationship between the inanimate or natural object and man. The person we look at, or who feels he is being looked at, looks at us in return. To perceive an aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return.” (Benjamin, 1968, p.188). Although he does not make the point explicit as such, here we can identify the aura as a psychological state – the attitude or feeling that the viewer is subjected to when contemplating a work of art.
Andy Warhol was a major part of the Pop Art movement in the early 60’s and was using the technologies of silkscreen printing to replace the need for a paintbrush. One of his most iconic works of art is the ‘Marilyn Diptych’ (fig. 3.), silkscreen paintings of Marilyn Monroe who died from an overdose of sleeping pills. Warhol saw the glamour in celebrity life and recognised the impact that it had on American culture. He used the technology of mechanical reproduction to realise his idea of the star’s mortality. The alterations in the registration of the different colours and the amount of paint applied through the silkscreen, gave him the blurring and fading effect, which was understood to suggest the star's departure from life. The prints in colour beside the panel of prints printed in black, implies a contrast between Monroe’s life and death. The American public who was fascinated with celebrities, who adored Monroe, was impacted by Warhol's prints, reinforcing Benjamin’s (1986) statement that the importance of an artwork is on its “ability to look at us in return” (Benjamin, 1968, p.188) – the connection and the emotional impact it has on its audiences.
