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October 30, 2007
Walter Benjamin
in thinking about authorship and art production i cant help but think about the issue of the mulitple. how does authorship change when there is the possiblity of reproduction? This question seems to be extremely relevant when thinking about art and the internet. is there total loss of the original when thinking about art that only lives on line. I have put a link to walter benjamin's article about mulitplicity and the "aura" of the original that he talks about. i just thought that his writings were extremely intresting and relevant in thinking about some of the topics of this class.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
the writing is called
Walter Benjamin (1936)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931
Le Conquete de l’ubiquite
Posted by elihazle at October 30, 2007 05:10 PM