> One of Benjamin's major concerns, however, is the concrete manner of
> presentation (Dartsellung) employed by a work of art, rather than
representational
> content as such. I think the idea of Aura is meant to capture a distinction
> in presentation rather than representation. It highlights, I believe, the
> difference between individual, unique works, which require individual,
solitary
> attention (an 'I' returning the gaze of a 'Thou'). So I don't think we need
> to force the issue of mechanical processes producing something that doesn't
> exist in itself, as it were (Benjamin is discussing, technische
> Reproduzierbarkeit, not mechanische Reproduzierbarkeit [technical, not
mechanical
> reproduction]); It's a question of techniques inherent to a medium, not of
mechanism
> simpliciter.
>
>
He says that the object of itself had a physical presence composed of its
history and cultural practices. He says that when the image-in the sense of a
secondary portrayal is multiplied then the physical presence of the
object is not present in the secondary image,itself an object without
the
history of the object itself. He says this destroys perception of the
physical presenceof the object itself. He also seems to say that it is the
number
of gazes which help to destroy the physical presence,and that these gazes can
gaze because of the number of images of the work. He seems to imply that
it is the number of images of the object easily accessible to the number of
gazes which does the damage-the culmulative effect of a lot of people who
would not ordinarily have been able to see the object itself looking at
many
images of the object destroys the perception of the physical presence of the
object itself when at last it is reached. The object itself has not
changed,its
history is the same,its cultural importance is the same,,and the number of
gazes looking at reproductions of the object somewhere else has no effect
on the physical object. If the viewer,having laid their gaze on many images
of the object, now expects the object itself, now in front of them, to
bestow knowledge of itself and a further appreciation of its beauties, on
him or
her, then this cannot happen without a kind of attention on the viewer's
part which is not possible with an image of the object.
Kate Sullivan
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