Theme 2 reflections(after)

The theme this week is more interesting because it is kind of related to our life but not something purely theoretical.

"The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity” mainly discussed how the development of mechanical reproduction technology brings a series of changes for Arts. Benjamin aimed to research the changes of arts in the conditions under capitalism, and find out if the cultures have revolutionary potentials. After the lecture this week, I read this text once more and try to review it; I think I have got two key points which is very important in this text:

1.       The aura

“We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be”, this is the definition from Benjamin. It is very abstract definition but not that hard to understand, I think aura is some kind of illusion which is expressed the unique qualities of the arts such as charm or artistic conception.

Aura has two basic features, authenticity and cult value.

Authenticity more even the best copy of arts cannot recover the unique of the arts. Aura has been lost.

With the development of history and art, the cult function gradually decreased, aura is no longer means the cult value.

2.       Mechanical Reproduction

With the rapid development of mechanical reproduction, film as a kind of new art form was created out. The birth of film destroyed the aura of arts.

We also discussed does culture have revolutionary potentials. I think films are kind of revolutionary culture. Benjamin said that ” The characteristics of the film lie not only in the manner in which man presents himself to mechanical equipment but also in the manner in which, by means of this apparatus, man can represent his environment”. We could say that films combines the artistic and scientific, it is one of the revolutionary functions of the film.

I did not read “Dialectic of Enlightenment” once more, because I was confusing what Nominalism is. After the seminar I understand more about it. As an example, if people see shadows of human inside a cave. They will simply think that there are some people stay in the cave. They won’t question how and why the shadows appear. Even if they make mistakes that the shadows are from themselves.

In the seminar we also discussed how culture industry deceives us. Cultural industries in modern society provide entertainment for people, but they are mostly like a way of escaping reality which is dark and harsh. In the process of people watching movies for example, they will lose the ability of independent judgment. People believe the world in the movies without question them, similar as nominalism mentioned above. Here I remembered the horse example in seminar; people believe the way of horse running on the printing until the real photograph of running horse appears.

I wondering if we could say that people sometime is blind just like the people before Enlightenment or this is just my misunderstanding.