In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Benjamin claims that “To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the authentic print makes no sense.” (Benjamin 1935, p. 4) I can not agree more with that statement. In the age of digital and mechanical reproduction, the work of art appears as something, that is meant to be reproduced. As a comparison, looking back to the past I want to turn to Ekaterina’s Palace in Saint Petersburg – architectural monument of the Tsarist Russia. Nowadays it is considered as a unique work of art. However originally it was built as a house for living. In Russian Imperia not only queen could afford apartments like that. Rich and wealthy Russian dynasties also lived in luxurious palaces. With new technologies houses are built way faster and they are not unique. If we will have a look at house of Russian person today it would be an easy to reproduce architectural object, which will scarcely likely will ever become a work of art. With the advent of the Bolsheviks houses started to be built on the same project to support the socialist idea of absolute equality between people, so most houses looked absolutely the same. Same thing happened to the art in whole. Since 20th century new media takes a huge place in art and it continues to defend it’s right to be a significant part of art. The tendency shows that cinema becomes more and more popular while theatre takes a back seat. It is also not a secret that more and more people become interested in photography and less – in art. According to Petty, with new media technologies art work loses it’s aura (M.Petty, personal communication, September 7, 2011). “Authentic” art still exists but it is probably about to extinct in few centuries.
References: 1. Benjamin, W. (1935). The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction.
References: 1. Benjamin, W. (1935). The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction.
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