Lina Maria Giraldo's Blog

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In this essay, Walter Benjamin writes on how mechanical reproduction of a work altered the role of art in history. He explores how it represents something new and unavoidable. He bases many of his points referring to film and photography.

 He emphasizes that in order to understand art, you need to study its production and technique, in order to understand the process. For example, he mentions that thanks to the woodcut, graphic art became mechanically reproducible for the first time and literature had been reproduced thanks to printing . During the middle ages, engraving and etching were added to the woodcut. Lithography appeared in the 19 century. It changed the history of reproduction and permitted graphic art to put its products in the market. Short time after, the invention was surpassed by photography.

 He states that the process of mechanical reproduction represents a new step in history. He mentions for example that the process of reproduction is more independent than manual reproduction. He mentions in the reading the differences between process reproduction, and technical reproduction. He mentions photography as an example of how it could show different perspectives. You could easily notice a manual reproduction, because it has mistakes. They are close to the reality, but not the same. Mechanical reproductions are like clones. It doesn’t matter how perfect is the reproduction of a work, it is going to miss the presence in time and space authenticity of which it means to be an original.

 He uses the concept of aura to make an explicit difference between original work and reproduction. He mentions that reproduced art work has lost its aura. He defines aura as “the unique value of the authentic work of art basis in ritual , the location of its original use of value”. He refers to here is that the aura represents the authenticity of a piece and the natural connections. He doesn’t think that destruction of the aura is a bad thing.

It makes pieces of art that before were unreachable to the masses . The massive reproduction is a creation of art.

This essay made me think about the first piece I made which was not an original. I decided I preferred to give a little bit of the piece to everybody in form of advertising using performance as a tool. I believe that its more effective to reach a bigger community than a select few. If I want to give a message I believe it’s very important to use massive resources.

 Another important aspect that I want to add is the way digital photography changed my view of Photography. What I mean is that digital photography helped me understand the basics of photography in a simple way; it brought me closer to the techniques that before seemed more complicated. Before I was not allowed to make any mistakes, because it was expensive. Now, I can try new ideas endlessly. I can share massively my photos on the net and they can be reproduced as many time as I want.

 Finally, I want to take the concept of the aura. I think every reproduction has a piece of aura from the original, because the aura is what people feel about the piece. The aura is the representations of their feelings.

Setting up a Word Press Blog 

It is relatively easy, as they say in the instructions. In fact, Word Press calls it the 5 minute process.  

The first step is to change the name of the database, my MySQL username and password in the config file. Then I have to upload the files in my ftp server using Fetch or Cyberduck. I prefer Cyberduck because it’s a free software. After I do that, I run the configuration script on the server. I finally get the Welcome to Word Press and finally you design your site. 

It is really an easy process you should try at any time

In 1909 the Futurist Manifesto was published. The Futurist movement, which discarded the past, celebrated speed, machinery and industry was launched. This is the same year that “The Machine Stops” was published. I realized this because of the idealization of the machinery and the pedestal that was created for it. In the plot, Humans have lost the ability to live on the Earth and they create a world underground were the machine does all for them. You just have to push a button, and things happen. The main character of the history is Kuno, who is rebel and sensitive and Vashti who is very happy and comfortable producing endless ideas. The machine is all for the civilization, it is its future and past. The machine represents their world, which provides everything for them. Civilization even forgets that they created the Machine. They get to the point, where they don’t even know how to repair it.

As I see the plot 100 years after it was written, makes me realize how close we are to romanticizing computers and fully depending on them. How we are forgetting about our land. Thanks to the new devices, we don’t know mathematics anymore. We have lost our sense of location and direction. We depend on technological devices to survive. Even the natural cycle of life and death in humans has been disrupted and made longer than expected. It is a story to make us think twice where we are coming from and where we are heading to. We are isolating ourselves in rooms in front of computers. We tend to use only text messaging and email for communication as they do with videoconferencing. The interpersonal relations are very far from being personal. You see but you can’t touch; you hear but you can’t smell. 

Our world is getting smaller. Almost everything we need to survive can be found through the computer: food, literature, social networks. If you want to do an experiment of living in a room for a year without going outside and just using the computer as a tool, I assure you that you can achieve it. The author was also aware of how the virtual communities made human loose interaction and narrow love.  

Producing ideas is a concept that could be implied in what we want to do right now. We only produce concepts that help us fit in a competitive society. 

 As a conclusion, It’s very important to remember that we came in this world naked. No devices that we can take wit us either.

Walter Ong

Mr Walter J Ong introduces us to the understanding of oral language and literacy and its differences. He reminds us that language is an oral phenomenon in which we communicate in numerous ways, like the senses of touch, taste, smell and hearing.

Oral literature in primary oral cultures has a great wisdom. It is a pure expression of a primitive culture. They don’t have dictionaries and their language is like our minds. They haven’t been touched by writing or print. Oral culture has always existed but writing has never existed without orality. Oral cultures define their words as concepts that are very close to the every day aspects of life. The author refers to this as situational thinking or experience. They have their words that define the every day life.

The oral culture needs to have poems in order to memorize. The only way they can retain thoughts is through verses that are highly rhythmic. This rhythmic process is linked with breathing gestures. Just take a look at the Homeric Greece when the public speaker uses repetition. Proverbs and riddles are also use to engage others. Primary Oral culture repeats over and over and tells stories of the day of old in order to keep history alive. They must do so to conceptualize their knowledge. Oral literature is a vague concept which is not supported as a literature by the scholars. At the end everything is written in words.

Homer argues that Hebrew culture is superior to ancient Greek because it knew writing. Robert Wood believes that Homer was Illiterate and was the power of memory which enabled him to produce poetry. Others believe that the Odyssey and Iliad are the result of a well structured and organized structure that needs to be the creation of one man and not the result of a combinations of different poems. The homer texts were explained as language generated over the years. In an oral culture knowledge needs to be repeated or it will be lost. Early poetry is the result of oral performance.

Written text is related with sound and speech is inseparable from our consciousness. Without writing, words have no visual presence, they are sounds. Writing is the result of an oral traditionWords lock oral tradition in an image forever. One of the first things that literates study is language itself and its uses. For literates, language needs to have control.

Without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fully potential. For this purpose orality is destined to produce writing. Literacy is necessary for the maturity of history, philosophy etc. Even though literacy destroys memory, it’s also adjustable. This is why literacy can also be implemented in new technologies

We can conclude with the phrase, “the medium is the message”. This explains the importance of the shift from orality trough literacy and print to electronic.

I had recently arrived in New York and I was waking for the first time on the Manhattan Bridge. Suddenly, something caught my attention. There was a waterfall on the other side of the east river; at first I though it was part of the aqueduct, or a construction site, but it was very unusual and beautiful. I even thought it might be related to the Port Authority security or the firefighters department. Its strength and power caught my attention. I looked at it for some time and enjoyed the water, until it was time to continue my trip to Brooklyn. I didn’t really know what I had seen, until I went to class and professor Barcia suggested visiting Olafur Elliason’s site. Here is when the piece started making sense. It was an artist off course! What else.So I did a bit of research. The Waterfall is one of the biggest pieces of the artist; they are 90-120ft tall. It is a piece inspired by nature. The environment is very important for him. He was inspired by the water surroundings of New York.This sculpture is like stopping the time no sound, no rush, no sadness, just water. I thought about it so much, that I took the boat in order to see them again today. Up close, they were even more impressive and beautiful.