Fast Art: Broken Images, in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin begins his essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," with an ominous harbinger: "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 un controlled (and at present almost uncontrollable) application would lead to a process of data in a Fascist sense" (431). Written in 1936 amid the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, Benjamin already recognized the implications of film and photography: these mediums had, and have, the potential to galvanize large populations, to seduce them with the illusion of truth, into committing acts of incredible thoughtlessness. For the first time, the divide between traditionally ideologically isolated populations--with different dialects, customs, and cultural activities--could be bridged by mass medium, to create a mob. Although there is no direct causation between the rise of film and the nationalistic fervor that led to the First and Second World Wars, film nonetheless laid the ground work, the potential, the substructure, for such atrocities to come to fruition. According the Benjamin, the public makes the mistake of misunderstanding film as facticity. In the present age, we take for granted the inherent discontinuities between an image and unequivocal fact. Like all representations, images show what the photographer's eye wants you to see. Whether consciously or unconsciously, a photographer imbues each image with a political slant. The verisimilar appearance of a photograph, or a film reel, takes out of the equation the necessary reflection all representations require. So, rather than taking a photograph as an interpretation of a situation, the viewer takes it to be incontrovertible. Images saturate the current atmosphere so much that vision, and by implication thought, has fundamentally changed. In the vein of Merleu-ponty, the production, distribution, and exposure of images has produced a new Philosophy of Vision. As sight-experience changes, the conception of art-making and art-viewing changes. The creation of the photographic medium, and its ostensible accessibility to anyone with a trigger finger, blurs the once clear delimitation between artist and viewer--the viewer says to themselves, "I can do that," and maybe they can; however, as Sartre tells us about writers, it is frivilous to think about what a dead artist could have done had s/he not died so young, because one cannot be judged upon their potential, only their actions. Thus, the amateur photographer or film-maker who says, "ah, I can do that," misunderstands their situation, because they in fact did not do that. Mr. Brainwash is a great example of this phenomenon. Not everyone can make art, nor should everyone be encouraged to do so. The accessibility of art encourages people to try their hand at art. The access of the public to a work of art means that everyone can have an opinion about it, everyone becomes a critique. The internet, especially, allows for an equal footing for all ideas, no matter how good or bad, informed or misinformed. Uncensored, the internet becomes a breading ground for misrepresentation and misunderstanding. Politically speaking, this podium causes a very dangerous situation. The anonymity of many voices exacerbates this issue. The speaker no longer takes responsibility for their actions, for the dissimulation of their bad ideas. The converse becomes true as well though, as we have seen with the Arab spring. The internet can be used as a protest-podium for marginalized groups, a place that often evades the censorship of parties being attacked. Benjamin never discusses the positive potential of this new accessibility, the instantaneous access to information, art. Of course, in 1936, there is no way he could have known to what extent images would literally take over our lives. It is as if we are all on the Truman Show, and we want someone to be watching. Our self-consciousness only leads to higher rates of conventionalism, rather than perpetual self-reflection. We want to be part of the mob, be part of the cool kids, which is perhaps why Hitler's propaganda was so successful. His administration was able to create the idea of unity, of greatness, of perfection. People bought this idea, they consumed it, they ate it up, only to realize that it was all just a show, just a ruse, just manipulation.
Karl Jaspers writes, in The Question of German Guilt, “Metaphysical guilt is the lack of absolute solidarity with the human being as such--an indelible claim beyond morally meaningful duty. This solidarity is violated by my presence at a wrong or a crime. It is not enough that I cautiously risk my life to prevent it; if it happens, and I was there, and if I survive where the other is killed, I know from a voice within myself: I am guilty of being still alive.” If nothing else, the image takes us farther away from one another because it convinces us that it is in fact bring us closer to the other--it is more real than the here and now, more real than the limits of my own vision, more real than the voice of the actor on the stage. Luckily, there continue to be art forms that cannot be reproduced--their evanescence becomes their greatest attribute. But, perhaps, this nostalgia I have for the creative, the unique, the irreproducible makes me the most susceptible victim to the imagined "aura," the imagined lingering cult value of an image.