The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Everything in life evolves and change for better or for worst. In the same way, art does, because “the existence of work art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence” (220). In the essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin discuss how this era of Mechanical Reproduction is affecting the true meaning of Art, how is losing: the aura, the realness, the reality of our soul, which conducts our art through the mechanical reproduction of art.

The reading was interested and shocking since Benjamin wrote this around 80 years ago, and this been happening, and people read about it and doesn’t notice it or don’t want to. How are living in an era where everything is made to be reproduce, how he discussed “in principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Manmade artifacts could always be imitated by man…Mechanical reproductions of a work of art, however, represents something new. (218). Taking me to question and analyzed the purposed of “art work” if it was positive or negative. How now a day we do not know if something is unique or not. Is something was created with their trough scenes showing their aura or if is just another simulation.

An example of this is how he refers to photography and film as a work of art, where he questioned himself if this should be considered an art. I think he had this perception because he knew what the real purpose in long terms of photography and film was. In the beginning, the use of photography and film was to be able to capture the real moment in real time, in that way they can transmit those feeling to other that wasn’t there and also to remember moments. However, in the Mechanical Reproduction era that we are living this had changed. Photography and Film are being used as entertainment as he said: “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” (223). Instead of making people feel something, they play around with the reality, in order to control the masses indirectly. The frustrating part of this is that we don’t realize that because we are also living in an era that we don’t question ourselves often.

With this reading, I could understand that art is “an instrument of magic,” but we must understand it and learned how to use it better. And that the only way to use it correctly is with passion and realness, “with its uniqueness, that us, its aura” (Benjamin,223), our soul, that we should only make art of what we have inside. Not has is being used today, to be reproduced and to entertain. Because the purpose of art is to make others feel something and create any type of emotion. But don’t get me wrong I love film and photography, because they are many of us that keep the essence of it.