Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s my good friend Walter Benjamin, back from the grave the instill a little wisdom on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” As the name might suggest, Benjamin explores the evolution and ramifications of art reproduction transitioning from individual pieces created by artists to mass produced works through technological means. While he has some lovely sentiments about the role of spacial and temporal context to an art piece, paradigm shifts in cultural perceptions of art, the dual values of art as cult and exhibition, limited interactions between artist and audience, and the like, my take home message from Bengamin is shift in audience roles from engagement to passive observer.
Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeable in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception, finds in the film its true means of exercise. This film with its shock effect meets this mode of reception halfway. The film makes 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 all the movies this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.
This strikes me too simple a response to viewer interaction. There is a common difficulty in recognizing the role and potential for new media because it has not had the time to be fully integrated into a society. This means that, looking at a new medium, critics will be more likely to generalize. Whereas, classical art has a defined and highly documented legacy, with particularly skilled pieces widely accepted as “art,” newer media, like the internet, is often generalized. People frequently overlook the massive body poor paintings that dominate the whole body of work in this field in favor of the relative few, highly skilled pieces since there has been a filtering process that has brought out the cream of the medium to public attention. New media has not yet experienced this filtering system. As a result, people frequently compare the body of a new media with the cream of an older, more well established media. Thus, it is nigh impossible to compare old and new media because they come with ready established biases and misconceptions.
This then results in the broad generalizations that can be similar to Benjamin’s conclusions of the audience / art piece interaction in newer media. Benjamin concludes that new audiences, while taking on a judgmental role in art consumption, have become far more passive or “absent minded.” I consider Benjamin’s conclusion to be emblematic of the paradox of comparing old and new media.
In fact, I would contend that the audience has gained new and more highly evolved means of interaction with art through new media, particularly the internet. I know it is not fair to bring in arguments out of the reach of the author, given the time in which this was written. But you know what happens with out dated books? Of course not, you never see them. They are out dated.
Not to say that Walter Benjamin should be removed from bookshelves. He has other fascinating points, but what I care about is the nature of user interaction. Is there a great hypodermic to inject audiences with ideas, forgoing any real thought or analysis? I don’t think so. Rather, the internet allows people to interact with art in new and exciting ways. Rather than just listening to a song, audiences can become artists themselves by remixing it or creating their own music video for it. Rather than only watching a movie–one of Benjamin’s favored examples of mechanically reproduced art–audiences can re cut, dub over, and mix films. The possibilities are endless and audiences are constantly crossing what used to be a defined line between creator and consumer of content
So, in case no one ever did before, I welcome you to the brave new world of interactive creation. It’s more than making art that people can interact with, it is about turning the viewers into creators. Rather than “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, I invite you to write your own adventure and post it. After all, here I am, responding to Walter Benjamin.
On this subject, I really recommend Larry Lessig’s talk on “How creativity is being strangled by the law” and Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture.
Related posts:
- Noir: Shooting V.O. IN A WORLD of endless possibilities, the “Noir” team...
- Creating the blog I never realized how much I love blogs until I...
- Understanding Media Extra Points For Creativity McLuhan has been a reoccurring theme...
- Why I love New York I love New York. I am serious. It’s been...
- Orality and Literacy Class 1 Assignment 2: Orality and Literacy Looking over Ong’s...