Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benajmin

Sorry this is late- I caught that horrid plague that's going around and was out of commission for a bit. I've typed up a summery with some commentary but I was a bit lost as to the larger purpose of this piece so... yeah.... make what you can of it.

Art has always been reproducible to a point. A student can recreate a masters painting pretty accurately, but mechanical reproduction has pulled art into a new age. Reproduction presents us with two new opportunities; to alter what we see around us (for instance through the manipulation of a photograph) and to put art in surroundings where it wouldn’t have been other wise (The art of a cathedral can now be displayed smartly in your living room).

However reproduction detaches art from its sense of history, tradition, and authenticity. The reproduction is never as awe inspiring as the original. We are not moved by what Benjamin refers to as the “aura” of the piece. Art is valued in two main ways; its cult value (often it’s function within a spiritual context) and it’s exhibition value (it’s function when viewed by others). When art is removed from these values through reproduction, art becomes political. Then Benjamin loses me for a bit.

Benjamin proposes that with the introduction of the photograph we, for the first time, see the exhibition value of a piece out weight the importance of cult value. I don’t have a totally solid grasp on Benjamin’s use of the label “cult value” but I’m not sure I agree with this. People used to commission art for display all the time for no other reason than it made people aware of their wealth. Like how rich people today might not really give a crap about the save the panda foundation, but they look good by giving to it. Then he insists that mechanical reproduction/destroyed has removed the cult value of art. Again I call erroneous! People can have a spiritual experience with a machine made piece of art, people can connect with a reproduction, though it is perhaps less likely.

He goes on for a while about how different forms of reproduction (photography and film) devoid art of it’s aura; how it separates you from the humanity it originated from.

*Blank empty stare* So… I went through 95% of this piece thinking… this man has no point- and then suddenly OHMYGODSLAPINTHEFACE he starts discussing fascism and war. “[Mankinds] self alienation has reached such a degree that it can experiences its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.”

There is some sort of huge metaphor here dancing just at the tip of my comprehension. This piece HAS to be saying SOMETHING. I even cheated and called someone I know who works in theory (who informed me that the authors name is NOT pronounced like the english equivalent), but the moralistic jerk would only go so far as to tell me to read with a Marxist lens and be aware of when the piece was written (just before WWII).

After rereading the piece this is the best I can make out:
mass production voids art of it's aura and therefore robs people of their ability to reflect. Without this practice of reflection people become "self alienated" and so alienated from themselves begin to find war (the product of fascism at the time) beautiful. (If we cheapen art other cheap acts like war will become artistic.) So, in contrast, it should be the duty of communism to politicise art. Use the reflection of art to encourage people to contemplate politics.

My recommendation is to read the epilogue.

That's all I got. It's somewhat a shot in the dark