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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction
XV
The mass is a matrix from which all traditional
behaviour toward works of art issues today in a new form. Quantity has
been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of participants
has produced a change in the mode of participation. The fact that the new
mode of participation first appeared in a disreputable form must not confuse
the spectator. Yet some people have launched spirited attacks against precisely
this superficial aspect. Among these, Duhamel has expressed himself in
the most radical manner. What he objects to most is the kind of participation
which the movie elicits from the masses. Duhamel calls the movie 'a pastime
for helots, a diversion for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who
are consumed by their worries a spectacle which requires no concentration
and presupposes no intelligence which kindles no light in the heart and
awakens no hope other than the ridiculous one of someday becoming a 'star'
in Los Angeles.' Clearly, this is at bottom the same ancient lament that
the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the
spectator. That is a commonplace.
The question remains whether it provides a
platform for the analysis of the film. A closer look is needed here. Distraction
and concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows:
A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters
into this work of an the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he
viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs
the work of art. This is most obvious with regard to buildings. Architecture
has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of
which is consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction. The laws
of its reception are most instructive.
Buildings have been man's companions since
primeval times. Many art forms have developed and perished. Tragedy begins
with the Greeks, is extinguished with them, and after centuries its 'rules'
only are revived. The epic poem, which had its origin in the youth of nations,
expires in Europe at the end of the Renaissance. Panel painting is a creation
of the Middle Ages, and nothing guarantees its uninterrupted existence.
But the human need for shelter is lasting. Architecture has never been
idle. Its history is more ancient than that of any other art, and its claim
to being a living force has significance in every attempt to comprehend
the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are appropriated in a
twofold manner: by use and by perception - or rather, by touch and sight.
Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration
of a tourist before a famous building. On the tactile side there is no
counterpart to contemplation on the optical side. Tactile appropriation
is accomplished not so much by attention as by habit. As regards architecture,
habit determines to a large extent even optical reception. The latter,
too, occurs much less through rapt attention than by noticing the object
in incidental fashion. This mode of appropriation, developed with reference
to architecture, in certain circumstances acquires canonical value. For
the tasks which face the human apparatus of perception at the turning points
of history cannot be solved by optical means, that is, by contemplation,
alone. They are mastered gradually by habit, under the guidance of tactile
appropriation.
The distracted person, too, can form habits.
More, the ability to master certain tasks in a state of distraction proves
that their solution has become a matter of habit. Distraction as provided
by art presents a covert control of the extent to which new tasks have
become soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are tempted
to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and most important
ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today it does so in the film.
Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing noticeably in
all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in apperception,
finds in the film its true means of exercise. The 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 at the movies this position requires
no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one. |