Lina Maria Giraldo's Blog

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.