The Work of Art in the Era of Its Technological Reproducibility
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lt"lterBeniomin SELECTEDV/RITINGS VOLUME4 r 938-t 940 Tronslotedby EdmundJephcott ondOthers Editedby HowordEilond ond Michoel\V. Jennings THE BELKNAPPRESS OF HARVARDUNIVERSITY PRESS Combridge,Mossochusetts, ond London, Englond 2OO3 I Workof Art in the As" of lts Technolog ico I Reproducibil ity ThirdVersion Our fine arts were developed,their types and useswere 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 artained, the ideas and habits they are cre- ating, 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 consideredor 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 ir was from time immemorial. We must expect great inno- vations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic in- vention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazrngchange in our very notion of art. -Paul Val6ry,Piices sur I'art ("La Conqu6tede l'ubiquit6") Introducfion When Marx undertook his analysis of the capitalist mode of production, this mode was in its infancy.l Marx adopted an approach which gave his in- vestigationsprognostic value. Going back to the basic conditions of capital- ist production, he presentedthem in a way which showed what could be ex- 'lfhat pected of capitalism in the future. could be expected,it emerged,was not only an increasingly harsh exploitation of the proletariat but, ulti- mately, the creation of conditions which would make it possiblefor capital, ism to abolish itself. Since the.transformation of the superstructure proceeds far more slowly than that of the base,it has taken more than half a century for the changein 252 rgSg the conditions of production to be manifested in all areas of culture. How this processhas affected culture can only now be assessed,and these assess- ments must meet certain prognostic requirements. They do not, however, call for theseson the art of the proletariat after its seizureof power, and still less for any on the art of the classlesssociety. They call for thesesdefining the tendencies of the development of art under the present conditions of production. The dialectic of theseconditions of production is evident in the superstructure, no less than in the economy. Theses defining the develop- mental tendenciesof art can therefore contribute to the political struggle in ways that it would be a mistake to underestimate.They neutralize a number of traditional concepts-such as creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery-which, used in an uncontrolled way (and controlling them is difficult today), allow factual material to be manipulated in the interests of fascism. In what follows, the concepts which are iitroduced into tbe tbeory of art differ from those now current in that they are completely uselessfor the purposes of fascism. On the other hand, they are useful for tbe formula- tion of reuolutionary demands in the politics of art lKunstpolitik]. I In principle, the work of art has always been reproducible. Objects made by humans could always be copied by humans. Replicas were made by pupils in practicing for their craft, by masters in disseminating their works, and, finally, by third parties in pursuit of profit. But the technological reproduc- tion of artworks is something new. Having appeared intermittently in history, at widely spaced intervals, it is now being adopted with ever- increasing intensity. The Greeks had only two ways of technologically re- producing works of art: casting and stamping. Bronzes, terracottas, and coins were the only arfworks they could produce in large numbers. All oth- ers were unique and could not be technologically reproduced. Graphic art was first made technologically reproducible by the woodcut, long before written language became reproducible by movable type. The enormous changes brought about in literature by movable type, the technological reproducibility of writing, are well known. But they are only a special case, though an important one, of the phenomenon consideredhere from the per- spectiveof world history. In the course of the Middle Ages the woodcut was supplemented by engraving and etching, and at the beginning of the nine- teenth century by lithography. Lithography marked a fundamentally new stage in the technology of re- production. This much more direct process-distinguished by the fact that the drawing is traced on a stone, rather than incised on a block of wood or etched on a copper plate-first made it possible for graphic art to market its products not only in large numbers, as previouslS but in daily changing Work of Art in rheAge of Reproducibility(Third Version) 253 variations. Lithography enabled graphic art to provide an illustrated ac- companrment to everyday life. It began to keep pace with movable-type printing. But only a few decadesafter the invention of lithography, graphic art was surpassedby photography. For the first time, photography freed the hand from the most important artistic tasks in the process of pictorial re- production-tasks that now devolved solely upon the eye looking into a lens. And since the eye perceivesmore swiftly than the hand can diaw, the process of pictorial reproduction was enormously accelerated, so that it could now keep pace with speech.A cinematographer shooting a scenein the studio captures the images at the speedof an actor's speech.Just as the illustrated newspaper virtually lay hidden within lithography, so the sound film was latent in photography. The technological reproduction of sound was tackled at the end of the last century. Theseconvergent endeavorsmade it possible to conceive of the situation that Paul val6ry describesin this sen- "Just tence: as water, gas, and electriciry are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needswith minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappe^t ii ^ simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign."2 Around 1900, techno- logical reproduction not only bad reacheda standard that permitted it to re- produce all known works of art, profoundly modifying tbeir effect, but it also had captured a place of its own among tbe artistic processes.Ingaug- ing this standard, we would do well to study the impact which its two dif- ferent manifestations-the reproduction of artworks and the art of film- are having on art in its traditional form. tl In even the most perfect reproduction, one thing is lacking: the here and now of the work of art-its unique existencein a particular place. It is this unique existence-and nothing else-that bears the mark of the history to which the work has been subject.This history includes changesto the physi- cal structure of the work over time, together with any changes in owner- ship.3 Traces of the former can be detected only by chemical or physical analyses(which cannot be performed on a reproduction), while changesof ownership are part of a tradition which can be traced only from the stand- point of the original in its present location. The here and now of the original underlies the concept of its authenticity. chemical analysesof the patina of a bronze can help to establishits authen- ticity, just as the proof that a given manuscript of the Middle Ages came from an archive of the fifteenth century helps to establish its autlenticity. Tbe whole sphere of autbenticity eludes technological-and, of course, not only technological-reproducibility.a But whereas the authentic work re- tains its full authority in the face of a reproduction made bv hand. which it 254 . lgSg generally brands a forgerg this is not the casewith technological reproduc- tion. The reason is twofold. First, technological reproduction is more inde- pendent of the original than is manual reproduction. For example, in pho- tography it can bring out aspectsof the original that are accessibleonly to the lens (which is adjustable and can easily changeviewpoint) but nor to the human eye; or it can use certain processes,such as enlargement or slow mo- tion, to record images which escapenatural optics altogether. This is the first reason. Second, technological reproduction can place the copy of the original in situations which the original itself cannot attain. Above all, it en- ables the original to meet the recipient halfway, whether in the form of a photograph or in that of a gramophone record. The cathedral leavesits site to be receivedin the studio of an art lover; the choral work performed in an auditorium or in the open air is enjoyed in a private room. The situations into which the product of technological reproducion can be brought may leave the arrwork's other properties untouched, but they certainly devalue the here and now of the artwork. And although this can apply not only to art but (say) to a landscapemoving past the spectator in a film, in the work of art this processtouches on a highly sensitivecore, more vulnerable than that of any natural object. That core is its authenticity. The authenticity of a thing is the quintessenceof all that is transmissible in it from its origin on, ranging from its physical duration to the historical testi- mony relating to it. since the historical testimony is founded on the physical duration, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction, in which the physical duration plays no part. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.s One might encompassthe eliminated element within the concept of the aura, and go on to say: what withers in the age of the technological reproducibility of the work of art is the latter's aura.