Walter Benjamin and Aura: "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility" Part 1
An overview of Walter Benjamin's essay "The work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility," with an emphasis on Benjamin's concept of the "aura" of a work of art.
Part 1: • Walter Benjamin and Au...
Part 2: • Walter Benjamin and Fi...
Part 3: • Walter Benjamin, Polit...
Corrections: At 10:50 I say that Benjamin is "celebrating the loss of the aura." I would probably prefer to soften my language here and acknowledge Benjamin's "ambivalence" toward the withering of the aura, which seems to be the most common way that Benjamin scholars will refer to his attitude about the withering of the aura (and film as a medium) in this essay. This famous ambivalence is indicative of Benjamin's "dialectical" thinking--a mode of reasoning/thinking that emphasizes the mutuality of two opposing forces, like the two opposing sides of a coin that must exist for the coin itself to exist. Dialectical thinking is at the heart of the "Work of Art" essay, and it finds its most potent expression in the very first paragraph regarding Marx's prediction that capitalism will contain the conditions necessary for its own abolition.
Thanks a loooot sir for clearing this out so amazingly! I was suffering from this difficult topic for two days! hahha.. and now its crystal clear to me. thanks again for this helpful session. :D
glad it was helpful!
Your lecturing skills are amazing and the lecture itself is very useful, thank you!
thank you very much for this! your way of explaining this is really very understandable and engaging. love it
Amazing overview! You did a great job, thank you.
thanks!
I did a couple of units on media studies in university back in the day, but I have to say that I didn't appreciate it or even absorb the content well at the time. It's amazing to me that lectures like this exist. I have been able to shore up those gaps in my knowledge and reignite an interest in theory again, well into my 30s. Thank you so much for uploading these Professor Schonig.
that's awesome - thank you!
Thank you for this, really helpful.
This is so helpful. Thank you very much!
Tnank you so much. It really helped me in classes
Wowww, so fricking comprehensive and informative!
thanks!
Yes, but even photography has an aura and even Benjamin's essay and even Benjamin himself. Every thing has value it has an intrinsic aura. Reproduction is also ambivalent as every phenomena: it flattens the aura but also expand it as differential reference to an auratic original; independently if it is a painting or photo, or movie...if the original is meaningful it is auratic...All the quotations on Benjamin's essay multiply the aura of the essay; the reproductions of a work of art are like quotations that expand the aura of the original. Then the luck of an artwork to become auratic is also contingent and contextual...it must appear to the right time and right place...In a way it must incarnate the "Zeitgeist", even in a profane sense of matching the right production and distribution, to become meaningful and auratic...
Interesting
awesome breakdown !!
Thank you for this!
Excellent 👌 presentation and thank you
great video, really helpfull, thank you
Nevermind i found it. These videos are saving me
Thank you very much. Where is part 2 ?
Well explained
Comments 28 on 3-7-2022. I carried out a close reading of Mythologies in the ninteen nineties. It was on the BA reading list. I suppose it is a difficult book to explain once you get past signifyer and signified and the arbitrary nature of form and expression in language/writing. My end of it was the social consequences of the word and its use in daily reality.
When i close my eyes you sound like david schwimmer. Its like Ross is my communication science teacher. Im a student from germany and im writing an paper about nft´s and what walter benjamins thoughts would have been thank you again very much for this video course. Are you a professor and if so where are you teaching? Sidenote: you could use one thumbnail-style for all 3 videos that would make the navigation on your chanel easyer
lol thanks. glad you're finding them helpful. Yup, I'm a professor. I'm curious: did your prof bring up the Benjamin connection to NFTs or is that something you're pursuing on your own?
amazing sir
always wonder what Benjamin would have thought about the Taschen line of books, i have so many of them 😅
What about the experience of aesthetics? Does it stay, diminish or destroy with the transformation of cult value to the exhibition value?
Does Benjamin view the 'aura' negatively or the 'cult value' of an artwork? From reading his essay it seems he laments the loss of the aura but praises the reduction of the cult value of a piece of art, so that the piece of art doesn't remain an exclusive item for the bourgeoisie to appreciate. But isn't the cult value a precondition for an aura to arise, and doesn't this contradict his thesis? Would love to hear your thoughts.
What you're saying makes a lot of sense. In my reading of the essay, which I understand to be a fairly common one in film studies (but certainly not the 'right' or only reading), Benjamin's attitude toward the aura is most safely described as ambivalent. There is indeed a tone of lamentation in his discussion of the loss of the aura in the first few pages of the essay. But the broader argumentative thrust of the essay is to see the positive potential in mechanical reproduction (as well as art forms, like film, that are based on mechanical reproduction). So the 'contradiction' that you're seeing is at the heart of the essay. But instead of seeing it as a flaw in logic, most scholars will see it as an example of 'dialectical' thinking--that is, seeing the contradictions inherent in a given thing, concept, epoch, etc. Following this, I sort of think of Benjamin's position this way: the rise of mechanical reproduction, which obliterated the aura, is consistent with the rise of capitalism and industrial production--and those things aren't great. But this doesn't mean mechanical reproduction is wholly a bad thing. In fact, certain aspects of mechanical reproduction can help liberate us from things like fascism and ways of thinking that are tied up with fascism--and that's good. Contradiction (or put more generously, dialectical thinking) is so central to the essay's arguments, and to aura as one of the central concepts, that I'd hesitate to say that his position on cult value 'contradicts his thesis.' The bigger point of the essay, as I understand it, is much closer to what you're attributing to cult value as a concept. His 'lamentation' of the aura seems locatable only at the level of tone, and even then is confined mostly to the first few pages, at least in my memory of the text. This is why I often caution students about overemphasizing this lamentation of the aura, and this is also why I perhaps overstate Benjamin's rejection of the aura (his alleged celebration of its death) in the video. But this is all subject to debate. While a majority of my colleagues (in film studies) will emphasize to their students Benjamin's "ambivalence" about the aura, and may even emphasize the necessity of its loss for social progress (for Benjamin), I've had at least one scholar heavily critique (through email) my account of Benjamin's attitude toward the aura in this video. This particular argument was supported by a broader look at Benjamin's work as a whole, and so was less built upon an examination of this text itself, but I do think there's plenty of legitimacy to such a reading if it's backed with reasonable evidence.
thaank u :)
I understand that because of the "mechanical reproduction" exhibition value changes. But, I didn't understand the part that how mechanical reproduction free the work of art from "ritual"?
6:44
May I know whether your videos cover the entire essay ?
I'd say the videos only cover a fraction of the essay, though I do try to cover major elements from the beginning, middle, and end. There's tons of ideas in the essay that aren't even mentioned in these videos.
What I am confused about is how the Mona Lisa has an aura before it became widely known. Doesn't that weight of the historicism of it create the aura in the first place?
Cool question. I do think the fame of the painting amplifies its aura, but as I understand the term, aura simply names the uniqueness of the object. So if my child brings home a macaroni necklace that they made from pre-school (pardon the very American example), that object will be highly auratic for me - it will be replete with 'aura.' It's neither valuable nor famous, but its uniqueness as an object will forever bear the trace of my child's making of it, and so to the extent that I will value this object, it will be mainly because of its aura.
@@filmandmediastudieschannel Got it, makes sense. Thank you so much, this really clarifies things for me!
Benyamin from Munchen and Wein.
I have a question that hopefully, someone can answer, what about subjective aura? for example, the original Mona Lisa has an aura, a copy does not (or significantly less) what if I gave you a normal, average store-bought guitar and said "this guitar once belonged to [insert name of famous guitarist]. To you, that guitar has now gained some superficial value, beyond that of its use. Have I - or you - given that guitar an 'aura' through subjectivity? hope that makes sense
This is a good question and I *think* it has a simple answer: the aura is in fact *always* "subjective" in a sense. The only difference between your story about the guitar (which is fabricated) and the fact of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre being the original (which happens to be true) is that millions of people subjectively feel the aura of the latter, while only your friend subjectively feels the aura of the former. The aura is indeed a *subjective* feeling that comes from a long history of cultural traditions, and it is a feeling that tends to accompany a belief about the authenticity of an object, not a series of scientific verifications about the authenticity of the object. If the Louvre confessed tomorrow that their Mona Lisa was a fake, the aura would be shattered, but the painting would remain the same; the same subjective shattering of the aura would happen if you told your friend about the falseness of the guitar.
@@filmandmediastudieschannel Thanks, I like the description of an aura being 'collectively' shattered if it turned out the Mona Lisa was indeed a fake. Thanks for responding to an older video, it has helped answer a few burning questions I had on Benjamin regarding 'aura' and 'experience'.