Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical ReproductionWalter Benjamin
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
by Walter Benjamin · first published 2008
29mentions
15recommended by
29HN commenters
2015–2026first – last mentioned
52% recommend48% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short 1936 essay on how reproduction erodes the aura of an original and widens access to art. Cited as a starting point for copies, photography, film, and digital culture; suits tech readers new to art theory.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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This is actually a subject dealt with widely in the humanities. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a good start, for instance. It does seem odd for art to be valued by the market, but there are clear ways to construct standard valuation (based on utility, etc) around it. some computer and printer…
on “Dropbox S-1” ↗You may want to read 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' by Walter Benjamin; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...
on “The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online” ↗…am skeptical that the niche Facebook has carved out for itself as the arbiter of who-and-what-I-see-and-how and who-and-what-sees-me-and-how is likely to work out in my favor. Recommended reading: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
on “Zuckerberg: this election is not going to be business as usual” ↗…fascinating. Why would I attribute different levels of worth to two artifacts that were totally identical, save for their method of construction? You might be interested in Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", in which he muses about more or less the same question: What is the difference between the original and an identical copy, made possible due to the technical advantages of our times? Wikipedia has…
on “Context Free Art” ↗A lot of your post touches on concepts touched upon in Walter Benjamin's classic essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. If you've not read it, it's well worth it: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/... Here's some more contextual information on it: http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/The_Work_o...…
on “Art Has Value” ↗…infinity accessible art, there is certainly a difference between seeing a reproduction of art and seeing the art in person, what Walter Benjamin would call the “aura” of the piece [2]. His 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is certainly worth a read – I have not seen a better analysis of the role of reproduction in art and society. However, the issues I have brought up are just details that I think a concerted effort by…
on “Museums Can Change – Will They?” ↗If anyone's interested in this dilemma I recommend Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction from 1936. One of the critical arguments that many are making here was access. Copies allow many people to access art opposed to the privileged. Benjamin also makes a huge case about the value of the…
on “Nearly 1,000 Paintings and Drawings by Vincent van Gogh Digitized and Put Online” ↗Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction[1][2] is probably of great interest to HN readers: he states that reproduction releases art from the ritual of production. This applies to so many aspects of our modern digital lives. It's touched on…
on “Walter Benjamin: Fragments, Salvage and Detours” ↗…as a reference more than a primary source and had a vague idea that she was some untouchable academic, but On Photography is one of the great works of art theory in the vein of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".
on “The Slave of Seriousness” ↗This topic has been explored since the advent of photography and cinema. When advances in technology allowed to produce indistinguishable copies. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by Walter Benjamin [1] is a good starting point on this topic. He was the first to ask what actually constitutes a work of art, if you can cheaply mass produce copies of it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...
on “The black market in stolen antiquities on Facebook” ↗…photos and videos, has been eroding away the value of the authentic "the one and only" irrelevant for some time. Walter Benjamin has a nice essay about this change of culture in his famous essay - " The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". And the Internet seems to further accelerate the notion of communal art, where memes only have value if they are shared freely and not when someone hangs it in a museum. My gripe with NFTs has nothing…
on “What is an NFT from an artist’s perspective?” ↗Reminds me of the "Camera Restricta" [1]. I encourage everyone interested in tech and photography to check out Villem Flusser's Towards A Philosophy of Photography [2] and of course Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction [3]. [1] https://hackaday.com/2017/01/28/camera-restricta-ensures-ori... [2] (1984) PDF http://imagineallthepeople.info/Flusser_TowardsAPhilosophyof... [3] (1932) PDF https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
on “Update to the “Samsung space zoom moon shots are fake”” ↗…unlike painting, cinema, or photography, one in which you can do things you can't in any other medium. I recommend checking out the following books if you want to move past your misconceptions: - The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin. - Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud. - Comics and Sequential Art, Will Eisner. All those books are quite approachable and engaging reads.
on “Sao Paulo: The City with No Outdoor Advertisements” ↗…same old songs, even if it just became “bad taste”. Its such a huge part of our culture that they will just miss. Same goes of course to all other parts of arts and culture. A good start to read is „ The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction“ by Walter Benjamin.
on “YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos” ↗It's a depressing field if you go to deep I feel, especially if you read the most critical and pessimistic critical theorists in the field. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Benjamin and The Society of the Spectacle by Debord forever changed my vision on society. "My thoughts have been replaced by moving images..."
on “Facebook Can’t Cope with the World It’s Created” ↗