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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction
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"Our fine arts were developed, their types
and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by
men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with
ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision
they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty
that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful.
In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered
or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern
knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space
nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great
innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting
artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change
in our very notion of art."
Paul Valéry, 'Le Conquete de l'ubiquité',
Pièces
Sur l'Art
Preface
When Marx undertook his critique of the capitalistic
mode of production, this mode was in its infancy. Marx directed his efforts
in such a way as to give them prognostic value. He went back to the basic
conditions underlying capitalistic production and through his presentation
showed what could be expected of capitalism in the future. The result was
that one could expect it not only to exploit the proletariat with increasing
intensity, but ultimately to create conditions which would make it possible
to abolish capitalism itself.
The transformation of the superstructure,
which takes place far more slowly than that of the substructure, has taken
more than half a century to manifest in all areas of culture the change
in the conditions of production. Only today can it be indicated what form
this has taken. Certain prognostic requirements should be met by these
statements. However, theses about the art of the proletariat after its
assumption of power or about the art of a classless society would have
less bearing on these demands than theses about the developmental tendencies
of art under present conditions of production. Their dialectic is no less
noticeable in the superstructure than in the economy. It would therefore
be wrong to underestimate the value of such theses as a weapon. They brush
aside a number of outmoded concepts, such as creativity and genius, eternal
value and mystery - concepts whose uncontrolled (and at present almost
uncontrollable) application would lead to a processing of data in the Fascist
sense. The concepts which are introduced into the theory of art in what
follows differ from the more familiar terms in that they are completely
useless for the purposes of Fascism. They are, on the other hand, useful
for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art. |