A Discussion of Walter Benjamin's 'the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'

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A Discussion of Walter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Illuminations, 1970, pp.211-44 Walter Benjamin was a modernist German-Jewish philosopher who, since 1930, made contributions to aesthetic theory by addressing issues concerning mass society with the Marxist doctrine of thought. His essays, accessible to an educated reader, are characterised by self-critical beliefs over positivism, and have influenced many schools of thought such as the interdisciplinary social theory of the Frankfurt School. With his seminal importance on the humanities, Benjamin has also influenced modern-day thinkers such as John Berger, who writes to inform our consideration and treatment of art. In one of his most prolific essays, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Benjamin does acknowledge that the reproduction of art could not directly inflect upon the economy or superstructure independently. This is because firstly, it is not a new phenomenon, and secondly, ‘in principle of work of art has always been reproducible.’[1] He does however infer that reproduced artworks bear political significance and that human sense perception relates to history. Heightened by the requirement of large-scale production to meet supply demands of the war years in which he lived, Benjamin explores his conscience of class struggle. He does so by placing art in a social class narrative, suggesting changing art technologies create new social forms due to the ‘tremendous shattering of tradition.’[2] This is an element of Marxist substructure that, in turn, could eventually transform the superstructures of society commandeered by the bourgeois. His writings constitute the loss of the ‘aura’, a supposed emanation firmly tied to traditional works of art, which Benjamin asserts throughout his essay to be a prerequisite of authenticity and
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