Save the Aura
Title: Aura
Note: Typed long ago, but forgot to add it to the blog
Walter Benjamin calls it aura. When you hear or read the word aura, I’m sure you have a fuzzy idea of what it is, this aura, this feeling of peace and tranquility, the feeling of being in the "right" place. When I first heard and read the word aura that’s what I thought about, but never thought about it with respects to paintings and media publications. So what does aura mean in the context of mass reproduction and media production. Benjamin talks about a loss of aura when there is a mass reproduction of a painting. With this loss of aura also creates a loss of authenticity, authority, uniqueness, meaning, etc. When I first read Benjamin’s paper on mass reproduction and photography, I thought to myself, why would this be important, who would sit down and write about all these things. That is somewhat what I thought about when I learned more about what this course is. But this course, this subject and this author Benjamin, makes the reader or the student think more deeply about concentrated topics and aspects of life. He talks about photography and how it has created massive reproduction or artwork, taking it away from its original space. It is true, with the loss of aura, the painting is taken for granted, but the fact that there is only one of the true kind, makes the value of it greater. The reason for many things in this world is for money, but who would have thought that a painting of something simple that would not have been worth anything in a church done by some dead guy would become so valuable, and so costly? A question was asked about digital art and its aura, and if the aura of digital art is lost once it has been printed on paper? That is a good question, and now that I think about it, many people may argue that the aura is lost, but for the sake of argument, I will argue that aura is not lost. When art is created on the computer, it is created to fit on paper and to be printed. I believe that people feel the need to have a hard copy of things or else if something happens to the computer, the information is lost. Even if the art was to stay on the computer, the medium it would be shown on is the computer screen, which ultimately limited by the dimensions of the screen. I will agree that the capabilities of documents and are on the computer are greater, because of the zooming affects etcetera. Some things may never leave the computer screen, but the feeling of seeing it face to face is not there, the ability to have something in its full authenticity in accordance with reality is not there. The ability to touch the artwork, to smell, feel and see the rigid ness of the art work that is only available on printed copy is not present on a screen. For this reason I say that a larger proportion of aura is lost when the medium is the screen rather than reality being focused solely by the human eye and not the zoom function.
Note: Typed long ago, but forgot to add it to the blog
Walter Benjamin calls it aura. When you hear or read the word aura, I’m sure you have a fuzzy idea of what it is, this aura, this feeling of peace and tranquility, the feeling of being in the "right" place. When I first heard and read the word aura that’s what I thought about, but never thought about it with respects to paintings and media publications. So what does aura mean in the context of mass reproduction and media production. Benjamin talks about a loss of aura when there is a mass reproduction of a painting. With this loss of aura also creates a loss of authenticity, authority, uniqueness, meaning, etc. When I first read Benjamin’s paper on mass reproduction and photography, I thought to myself, why would this be important, who would sit down and write about all these things. That is somewhat what I thought about when I learned more about what this course is. But this course, this subject and this author Benjamin, makes the reader or the student think more deeply about concentrated topics and aspects of life. He talks about photography and how it has created massive reproduction or artwork, taking it away from its original space. It is true, with the loss of aura, the painting is taken for granted, but the fact that there is only one of the true kind, makes the value of it greater. The reason for many things in this world is for money, but who would have thought that a painting of something simple that would not have been worth anything in a church done by some dead guy would become so valuable, and so costly? A question was asked about digital art and its aura, and if the aura of digital art is lost once it has been printed on paper? That is a good question, and now that I think about it, many people may argue that the aura is lost, but for the sake of argument, I will argue that aura is not lost. When art is created on the computer, it is created to fit on paper and to be printed. I believe that people feel the need to have a hard copy of things or else if something happens to the computer, the information is lost. Even if the art was to stay on the computer, the medium it would be shown on is the computer screen, which ultimately limited by the dimensions of the screen. I will agree that the capabilities of documents and are on the computer are greater, because of the zooming affects etcetera. Some things may never leave the computer screen, but the feeling of seeing it face to face is not there, the ability to have something in its full authenticity in accordance with reality is not there. The ability to touch the artwork, to smell, feel and see the rigid ness of the art work that is only available on printed copy is not present on a screen. For this reason I say that a larger proportion of aura is lost when the medium is the screen rather than reality being focused solely by the human eye and not the zoom function.
posted by MisTune at 9:53 PM
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