Passage 2 of Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction interests me. His idea is that a reproduced artwork doesn’t compare to the originals, as it loses its uniqueness from that time and space. I totally agree with this statement because there’s an element of awe when you see detailed artworks or sculptures from centuries ago. Knowing that these artists were able to create something so realistic or convey strong feelings through their work adds to the artwork’s aura and story. So, a replica doesn’t invoke the same feelings because the artists of these replicas are trying to copy the same paint strokes and aren’t able to paint with conviction.

What I like about Russolo’s The Art of Noises is that he isn’t afraid to make bold opinions on music. He claimed that industrial sounds from machinery and urban noise had a place in music and that it’s not too rough to be liked. With the influence of Neubauten, industrial music popularized, showcasing the transition of periods between the industrial revolution and the age of information. Russolo’s excitement for this change showed his defiance and maybe boredom with the current classical music, he understood that all types of sounds had the art and ability to convey different emotions.

A topic suggested in this 2008 documentary is that large corporations have too much control over creative content, restricting how people can use and share media. This is prevalent to this day, even stronger in my opinion, with how social media platforms are quick to copyright strike and take down content. For example, YouTubers have to be strict on what music they can include in their videos, vlogger’s especially have a more challenging time as songs that are playing in the background of a coffee shop they’re in could get their video taken down. While this is an inconvenience to work around, this gives smaller artists the spotlight to provide copyright free songs and beats that are safe for YouTube. Another point in the remix manifesto is that culture builds on the past. This means to me that all current and future works will have taken inspiration from the past. We see this in the trends of fashion and style where something 10-20 years ago is getting popular again. Artists have taken beats and snippets of old songs and remixed them into their own work adding their own personal flare to it.

This quote from Manovich’s 4th principle, variability, “A new media object is not something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions.” (p. 36) stood out to me as it shows the stark difference between traditional and new media. Traditional media is something static that can’t be changed once printed like books or newspapers whereas, new media like websites can be modified whenever based on user interactions. 

An example of variability can be seen in social media platforms that tailor what posts you see based on the content you’ve previously interacted with, customizing your algorithm daily and affecting the way we consume and interact with information. It is also important to point out how variability depends on the media objects within the database, if the media object is hard to scale, not loading quickly, updated, etc. will all affect its usability. While with traditional media like newspapers what you see is what you get, and there are rarely errors/issues in how the information or media is portrayed to you. All these elements that make new media interactive and personalized can also affect user experience negatively.

Lesson 17: See As Much As You Can

This passage stood out to me as I recently went to an art gallery and took an interest in Lorna Simpson’s, Earth & Sky, an exhibition that showcased massive paintings of minerals in motion alike to mimicking the movement of bullets. From afar the paintings of these minerals are impressively large and were so detailed yet when stepping closer you could see the different strokes and mediums used to achieve this. Due to the scale of the paintings, it was hard for me to imagine how Simpson was able to figure how to execute such detail on a large canvas since the closer you got to it the more it looked like random paint and texture.

I agree with how Saltz’s says artists “steal” and take inspiration from other artists because everyone has their own art style and flare. Taking elements of other peoples work and seeing how it could apply to yours to make it better means that you’re always open to learning and improving your craft. By experimenting and seeing what works to portray your unique vision you are also pushing the boundaries of your creativity. Additionally, he ends off by saying “Great art is often the enemy of the good; it doesn’t leave you enough room to steal.” To me this means that some artist’s are so good they are put on a pedestal and their style can’t be replicated to the same popularity.