Center of Contemporary Art - Tbilisi 

თანამედროვე ხელოვნების ცენტრი - თბილისი

WALTER BENJAMIN “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936)

[... ] Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to
reproduce all transmitted works of art and thus to cause the must profound change in their impact
upon the public; it also had captured a place of its own among the artistic processes. For the
study of this standard nothing is more revealing than the nature of the repercussions that these
two different manifestations—the reproduction of works of art and the art of the film have had
on art in its traditional form.
Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its
presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This
unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout
the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical
condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership. The traces of the
first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is impossible to perform
on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from
the situation of the original.
The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.
Chemical analyses of the patina of a bronze can help to establish this, as does file proof that
a given manuscript of the Middle Ages stems from an archive of the fifteenth century. The
whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical—and, of course, not only technical—
reproducibility. Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a
forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis-à-vis technical reproduction. The
reason is twofold. First, process reproduction is more independent of the original than
manual reproduction. […] Secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original
into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. Above all, it enables the
original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a photograph or a phonograph
record. […]
The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may
not touch the actual work of art, vet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. This
holds not only for the art work but also, for instance, for a landscape which passes in review
before the spectator in a movie. In the case of the art object, a most sensitive nucleus—
namely, its authenticity—is interfered with whereas no natural object is vulnerable on that
score. 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.
Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by
reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized
when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.
One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say that
which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a
symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art. One might
generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the
domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a
unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his
own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a
tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
renewal of mankind. Both processes are intimately connected with the contemporary mass
movements. Their most powerful agent is the film. Its social significance, particularly in its
most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic aspect, that is, the
liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage . […]
* * *
IV
The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of
tradition. [...] Originally the contextual integration of art in tradition found its expression in
the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual—first the
magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of the work of art with
reference to its aura is neve r entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the
unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original
use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual
even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty. The secular cult of beauty, developed
during the Renaissance and prevailing for three centuries, clearly showed that ritualistic basis
in its decline and the first deep crisis which befell it. With the advent of the first truly
revolutionary means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism,
art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later. At the time, art
reacted with the doctrine of l’art pour l’art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to
what might be called a negative theology in the form of the idea of “pure” art, which not only
denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter....
An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these
relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history,
mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on
ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art
designed for reproducibility. From a pho tographic negative, for example, one can make any
number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion
of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is
reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice—politics.
* * *
VII
The nineteenth-century dispute as to the artistic value of painting versus photography
today seems devious and confused. This does not diminish its importance, however; if
anything, it underlines it. The dispute was in fact the symptom of a historical transformation
the universal impact of which was not realized by either of the rivals. When the age of
mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in cult, the semblance of its autonomy
disappeared forever. The resulting change in the function of art transcended the perspective
of the century; for a long time it even escaped that of the twentieth century, which
experienced the development of the film.
* * *
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
XI
The shooting of a film, especially of a sound film, affords a spectacle unimaginable anywhere
at any time before this. […] In the theater one is well aware of the place from which the play
cannot immediately be detected as illusionary. There is no such place for the movie scene
that is being shot. Its illusionary nature is that of the second degree, the result of cutting. That
is to say, in the studio the mechanical equipment has penetrated so deeply into reality that its
pure aspect freed from the foreign substance of equipment is the result of a special
procedure, namely, the shooting by the specially adjusted camera and the mounting of the
shot together with other similar ones. The equipment- free aspect of reality here has become
the height of artifice; the sight of immediate reality has become an orchid in the land of
technology.
Even more revealing is the comparison of these circumstances, which differ so much
from those of the theater, with the situation in painting. Here the question is: How does the
cameraman compare with the painter? To answer this we take recourse to an analogy with a
surgical operation. The surgeon represents the polar opposite of the magician. The magician
heals a sick person by the laying on of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient's body. The
magician maintains the natural distance between the patient and himself, though he reduces it
very slightly by the laying on of hands, he greatly increases it by virtue of his authority. The
surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the
patient by penetrating into the patient's body, and increases it but little by the caution with
which his hand moves among the organs. In short, in contrast to the magician—who is still
hidden in the medical practitioner—the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing
the patient man to man; rather, it is through the operation that he penetrates into him.
Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in
his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There
is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one,
that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law.
Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more
significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing
permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all
equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.
XII
Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art. The
reactionary attitude toward a Picasso painting changes into the progressive reaction toward a
Chaplin movie. The progressive reaction is characterized by the direct, intimate fusion of
visual and emotional enjoyment with the orientation of the expert. Such fusion is of great
social significance. The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the
sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is
uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion. With regard to the screen,
the critical and the receptive attitudes of the public coincide. The decisive reason for this is
that individual reactions are predetermined by the mass audience response they are about to
produce, and this is nowhere more pronounced than in the film. The moment these responses
become manifest the\ control each other. Again, the comparison with painting is fruitful. A
painting has always had an excellent chance to be viewed by one person or by a few. The
simultaneous contemplation of paintings by a large public, such as developed in the
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
nineteenth century, is an early symptom of the crisis of painting, a crisis which was by no
means occasioned exclusively by photography but rather in a relatively independent manner
by the appeal of art works to the masses.
Painting simply is in no position to present an object for simultaneous collective
experience, as it was possible for architecture at all times, for the epic poem in the past, and
for the movie today. Although this circumstance in itself should not lead one to conclusions
about the social role of painting, it does constitute a serious threat as soon as painting, under
special conditions and, as it were, against its nature, is confronted directly by the masses. In
the churches and monasteries of the Middle Ages and at the princely courts up to the end of
the eighteenth century, a collective reception of paintings did not occur simultaneous]y, but
by graduated and hierarchized mediation. The change that has come about is an expression of
the particular conflict in which painting was implicated by the mechanical reproducibility of
paintings. Although paintings began to be publicly exhibited in galleries and salons, there
was no way for the masses to organize and control themselves in their reception. Thus the
same public which responds in a progressive manner toward a grotesque film is bound to
respond in a reactionary manner to surrealism.
* * *
XIV
One of the foremost tasks of art has always been the creation of a demand which could be
fully satisfied only later. The history of every art form shows critical epochs in which a
certain art form aspires to effects which could be fully obtained only with a changed
technical standard, that is to say, in a new art form. The extravagances and crudities of art
which thus appear, particularly in the so-called decadent epochs, actually arise from the
nucleus of its richest historical energies. In recent years, such barbarisms were abundant in
Dadaism. It is only now that its impulse becomes discernible: Dadaism attempted to create
by pictorial—and literary—means the effects which the public today seeks in the film.
Every fundamentally new, pioneering creation of demands will carry beyond its goal.
Dadaism did so to the extent that it sacrificed the market values which are so characteristic of
the film in favor of higher ambitions though of course it was not conscious of such intentions
as here described. The Dadaists attached much less importance to the sales value of' their
work than to its uselessness for contemplative immersion. The studied degradation of their
material was not the least of their means to achieve this uselessness. Their poems are “word
salad” containing obscenities and every imaginable waste product of language. The same is
true of their paintings, on which they mounted buttons and tickets. What they intended and
achieved was a relentless destruction of the aura of their creations, which they branded as
reproductions with the very means of production. Before a painting of Arp's or a poem by
August Stratum it is impossible to take time for contemplation and evaluation as one would
before a canvas of Derain's or a poem by Rilke. In the decline of middle-class society,
contemplation became a school for asocial behavior it was countered by distraction as a
variant of social conduct. Dadaistic activities actually assured a rather vehement distraction
by making works of art the center of scandal. One requirement was foremost: to outrage the
public.
From an alluring appearance or persuasive structure of sound the work of art of the
Dadaists became an instrument of ballistics. It hit the spectator like a bullet, it happened to
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
him, thus acquiring a tactile quality. It promoted a demand for the film, the distracting
element of which is also primarily tactile, being based on changes of place and focus which
periodically assail the spectator. Let us compare the screen on which a film unfolds with the
canvas of a painting. The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the
spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so.
No sooner has his eve grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested.
Duhamel, who detests the film and knows nothing of its significance, though something of its
structure, notes this circumstance as follows: “I can no longer think what I want to think. My
thoughts have been replaced by moving images.” The spectator's process of association in
view- of these images is indeed interrupted by their constant, sudden change. This constitutes
the shock effect of the film, which, like all shocks, should be cushioned by heightened
presence of mind. By means of its technical structure, the film has taken the physical shock
effect out of the wrappers in which Dadaism had, as it were, kept it inside the moral shock
effect.
XV
The mass is a matrix from which all traditional behavior toward works of art issues today in
a new form. Quantity has been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of
participants has produced a change in the mode of participation. The fact that the new mode
of participation first appeared in a disreputable form must not confuse the spectator. Yet
some people have launched spirited attacks against precisely this superficial aspect. Among
these, Duhamel has expressed himself in the most radical manner. What he objects to most is
the kind of participation which the movie elicits from the masses. Duhamel calls the movie
“a pastime for helots, a diversion for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who are
consumed by their worries . . . , a spectacle which requires no concentration and presupposes
no intelligence . . . , which kindles no light in the heart and awakens no hope other than the
ridiculous one of someday becoming a "star" in Los Angeles.” Clearly, this is at bottom the
same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration
from the spectator. That is a commonplace. The question remains whether it provides a
platform for the analysis of the film. A closer look is needed here. Distraction and
concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows: A man who concentrates
before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into this work of art the way legend tells of
the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass
absorbs the work of art. This is most obvious with regard to buildings. Architecture has
always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consummated by
a collectivity in a state of distraction. The laws of its reception are most instructive.
Buildings have been man's companions since primeval times. Many art forms have
developed and perished. Tragedy begins with the Greeks, is extinguished with them, and
after centuries its `rules' only are revived. The epic poem, which had its origin in the youth of
nations, expires in Europe at the end of the Renaissance. Panel painting is a creation of the
Middle Ages, and nothing guarantees its uninterrupted existence. But the human need for
shelter is lasting. Architecture has never been idle. Its history is more ancient than that of any
other art, and its claim to being a living force has significance in every attempt to
comprehend the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are appropriated in a twofold
manner: by use and by perception—or rather, by touch and sight. Such appropriation cannot
be understood in terms of the attentive concentration of a tourist before a famous building.
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
On the tactile side there is no counterpart to contemplation on the optical side. Tactile
appropriation is accomplished not so much by attention as by habit. As regards architecture,
habit determines to a large extent even optical reception. The latter, too, occurs much less
through rapt attention than by noticing the object in incidental fashion. This mode of
appropriation, developed with reference to architecture, in certain circumstances acquires
canonical value. For the tasks which face the human apparatus of perception at the turning
points of history cannot be solved by optical means, that is, by contemplation, alone. They
are mastered gradually by habit, under the guidance of tactile appropriation.
The distracted person, too, can form habits. More, the ability to master certain tasks in
a state of distraction proves that their solution has become a matter of habit. Distraction as
provided by art presents a covert control of the extent to which new tasks have become
soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are tempted to avoid such tasks, art
will tackle the most difficult and most important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses.
Today it does so in the film. Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing
noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds
in the film its true means of exercise. The film with its shock effect meets this mode of
reception halfway. The film snakes the cult value recede into the background not only by
putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this
position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.
EPILOGUE
The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are
two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian
masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism
sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express
themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them
an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of
aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Fuhrer cult,
forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into
the production of ritual values.
All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only
can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional
property system. This is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula
may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical
resources while maintaining the property system. [. ..]
[... ] The destructiveness of war furnishes proof that society has not been mature
enough to incorporate technology as its organ, that technology has not been sufficiently
developed to cope with the elemental forces of society. The horrible features of imperialistic
warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and
their inadequate utilization in the process of production—in other words, to unemployment
and the lack of markets. Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which collects, in the
form of “human material,” the claims to which society has denied its natural material. Instead
of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches, instead of dropping
seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura
is abolished in a new way.
Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
“Fiat ars—pereat mundus,” [Let art be created though the world be perished] says
Fascism, and as Marinetti admits, expects war to supply the artistic gratification of a sense
perception that has been changed by technology. This is evidently the consummation of l'art
pour l’art. Mankind, which in Homer's time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian
gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience
its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics
which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art.