elizabeth /201 /week 1

Always, the title alone, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, thrills me in its willingness to address the significance of art and technology together in a historical context. I find it reassuring to know that in what we might call the Age of Digital Reproduction, Benjamin was kind enough to start thinking about these things for us.

In the past, I’ve felt confused and a little disappointed by the piece. Some how the essay did not fulfill my expectations of the title. The beginning, with Valéry, where he addresses the imminent changes in “the ancient craft of the Beautiful” along with the impact of modern knowledge upon matter, time, and space- this language speaks right to the heart of what has always moved me, the notion of a moving beauty with mathesis. The passage, through Valéry, situates me in a familiar place with respect to Benjamin, for I’ve often considered him to be kind of a softy, an emotional writer prone to sentimentality and romantic metaphors. The Work of Art, however, doesn’t really read this way at all. I’ve always been confused by what seems like the sudden manifesto-like turn of the epilogue. Following this fascinating history lesson through the development of different media, the tone just shifts so dramatically at the end. It strikes me unexpectedly even though it is all set up quite tidily in the beginning with Marx.

Thinking about it now, I realize what a call to action the whole thing really seems to be. The entire piece puts the momentum of history and technology at our backs. I wonder where or how Benjamin might locate digital art’s revolutionary potential in the age of information. I find that I am very much curious about the intersection of art and economics, and how the immaterial, reproducible qualities of code make code-dependent art largely a non-commodity– its nature approaches an absolute freedom that makes it kind of a hard sell which has subversions and hazards all its own... I’m wondering now if there is room here for the realization of Benjamin’s vision.

From here, the leap to Espen Aarseth I find quite interesting. Aarseth, too, is providing some history, a more recent history of art and technology, as well as making a strong political critique that addresses ideology and innovation. We All Want to Change the World. Both writers seem invested in the questioning that emerges from considering art and power together. It’s an admirable position to take, to want to get into the battle over nomenclature, to advocate for rigor in order to clearly and purposefully describe the contours of a discourse– to discipline a discourse in order to shape its scope and momentum. The two together are an interesting place to begin the quarter. “Academic research and innovation is nothing if not also entrepreneurial, ideological and the like, and so we get rhetoric, hype, and buzz that is disguised as scholarship.” Last thought: Aarseth’s position on “the story” can’t help but bounce me back to Benjamin via The Storyteller.