The Internet and Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

I’m regressing back to our discussion on representation and re-presentation in this blog post. After reading Benjamin’s “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” I considered how digital reproduction has also changed our idea of art and its introduction to the Internet. What does this mean for the concepts of authenticity, authority, and agency? What does this mean for representation of things?

Concerning mechanical reproduction, the authenticity of a mechanically reproduced piece of art is diminished because it loses the history attached to the original piece of art. As Benjamin says, “The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced” (1235). But, the concept of authenticity is completely abolished when a piece of art becomes a digital image. Authenticity seems to apply primarily, if not exclusively, to physical objects. So, because of this, the digital image merely becomes an image of the art, detached from any physical historical context.

So, since authenticity is lost when art becomes a digital image, does it ultimately lose its authority as well? Benjamin says, “What is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object” (1235). The key word in this quote is “object”. Art, as a physical object, holds a certain authority because of place embedded in history and tradition. But, when separated from its physical form it is just an image. But, this doesn’t mean that the image doesn’t have a kind of authority or agency. Instead, our focus shifts from the entire agency of a physical object to the agency of a certain image. The authority may lie within its meaning, interpretation, and historical context. But, its physical form no longer provides authority.

The detachment of the art from its physical form allows us to examine and criticize it in a new way. It is indeed more about politics as a digital image than it is about ritual. Art becomes a cultural statement for to interpret freely. And the possibility of critiquing art becomes open to almost everyone. Benjamin says, “the adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception” (1236). New technologies release subjects from their physical forms and make them accessible to the masses. When Benjamin says “perception”, I believe he means the perception that art belongs in a physical form that few can access and interpret. The shift in perception occurred when technology allowed art to be materially reproduced, and then computers and the Internet allows art to be digitized.

By releasing art from authority that rested in its physical form, maybe it is removing unnecessary distractions from interpreting the actual image. Digitizing images gives the art a new kind of authority and agency, one that belongs to every human being.