Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanial Reproduction

Hello there bloggers,

This weeks tutorial task asks us to consider the following questions in relation to Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

• How do the ideas from Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" apply to contemporary digital media
• There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?
• Is a photoshopped image "authentic"? Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)?

Benjamins ideas are relative to contemporary digital media as art was, is and will be in the future, open to replication. Benjamin suggests that recreating orginal artworks takes away from their originality or their 'aura,' I believe the opposite. Technology today allows us to touch up, or even recreate damaged artworks, whith out these technologies the artwork itself would deteriorate and no longer exist. I supose that the recreated art work could even been seen as a fake or a plagiarised work, perhaps even a different work altogether. So I would have to say that while the recreation of artworks does keep them alive and allow us to repair damaged works it is possible to understand how a recreation causes the orginal to losse its 'aura' or orginiality.

There are many different types of art in todays society, however I do not think that is it fair the say that one artist is more skilled than the other. One artist may be a magnificant portrait painter while they may not be able to take an edit a photo to save their lives or vice a versa. Even dating back to 1887 artists such as Marcel Duchamp has some pretty out there ideas as to what could be considered art. I do not beleive that placing a a wheel upside down on a stool could be seen any more 'art worthy' than the digitally created images or music created today. Not to mention that you still have to have a knack for choosing what to take a photo of or how to create a song its not as simple as some make it out to be.

As for whether or not a photoshopped image is 'authentic' or in Benajmins terms has an 'aura' I believe it does. If someone takes a photo and edits it on photoshop they are still creating something new and authentic. However I doubt Walter Benjamin would see it that way!

Well thats all for today bloggers :)