week three blog | JohnnyleungDESMA9

Portrait of Walter Benjamin. Photo by Ullstein Bild / Getty.

Walter Benjamin's essay on the mechanization of art analyzes how the innovations or techniques of film and photography - of industrialization - affects society's perspective and appreciation for art. Broadly, he mentions how the mass mechanization of art will decay our perspectives on original/authentic art and how mechanized art forms function to replace any contemplation or reflection on the artwork. He was wrong on the former point, as Douglas Davis writes in his follow-up essay on the digitization of art, "We still bid wildly at auctions and employ armies of scholars to find the "original," the "authentic" masterpiece" (384). This will continue to be true for as long as time persists, and Benjamin was wrong to assume that the reproduction of artwork, in any form, would diminish the social reverence we have for authenticity.

Benjamin's point on the contemplation of art feels reminiscent of today's mass digitization and dissemination of content (what could be considered "art"), in that television and social media have effectively sedated our ability to critically think. The 24-hour news cycle and apps like TikTok are good examples of this phenomenon. Furthermore, Davis references another art theorist's (Frederick Jameson) comparison between video and traditional art, who claims that video is incapable of fostering communication (381).  These ideas are heavily interwoven with each other, but fall short of the reality of how society and people consume art. 

Letterboxd is a popular social networking platform for those that wish to discuss film and share their opinions. Image retrieved from Letterboxd | About brand.

Early 20th century camera. Retrieved from Collectors Weekly.

Film and photography, and by extension any mode for the production of art, can all foster insightful communication between people. Benjamin's evidence for the replacement of thought, that the mere change between frames prevents and disrupts contemplation (section XIV), severely underestimates the human mind's capability to produce complex thought instantaneously, and also ignores that contemplation can occur post-viewing.

The notion that film does not foster communication is purely a conservative reaction to the democratization of art, and it desperately tries to cling onto the idea that the value of art is derived from the traditional exclusivity of it. At the end of the day, art has intrinsic value because there was a person to create it, no matter the medium. Thus, contemporarily, the most significant discussion regarding society and art is how we analyze, discuss, and perceive artworks produced by artificial intelligence, and whether it impacts our current perceptions of human-made art.

A video from "OpenAI" showcasing "Dall-E 2", their AI system that can produce image from text. Retrieved from DALL·E 2 Explained - YouTube.

Works Cited 

Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936." 1935.

Davis, Douglas. "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: An Evolving Thesis: 1991

1995." Leonardo 28.5 (1995): 381-386.

jmanwarren. Photograph of an early-twentieth century camera. 2020. Collectors Weekly. 

Collectorsweekly.com, https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/287327-vintage-early-20th-

century-camera?in=activity

Letterboxd. Horizontal layout of Letterboxd logo. 2011.

Letterboxd.com, https://letterboxd.com/about/brand/. Accessed 20 April 2023.

OpenAI. "Dall-E 2 Explained" OpenAI, 6 April 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch

v=qTgPSKKjfVg&ab_channel=OpenAI

Ulstein Bild/Getty. Portrait photograph of Walter Benjamin in adulthood. The New Yorker.

Photograph. Newyorker.com, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/walter-benjamins

unfinished-magnum-opus-revisited-through-contemporary-art. Accessed 20 April 2023.