“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction.”Walter Benjamin

Argument:• Original art has lost its “aura” because we primarily

encounter art through a mass-produced copy of it.• A photograph of the Mona Lisa is all most of us will

ever know--and it lacks a special veneer of authenticity, specificity and history that gives the original its “aura.”

• Later, French Marxist critic Jean Baudrillard would call this the “precession of the simulacrum.” That is, individuals have no direct experience of anything: they always encounter an image or simulacrum before they have the real experience. The experience is thus never “real” in the sense that it is unmediated by the expectations created by the simulacrum.

Argument:• Original art has lost its “aura” because we primarily

encounter art through a mass-produced copy of it.• A photograph of the Mona Lisa is all most of us will

ever know--and it lacks a special veneer of authenticity, specificity and history that gives the original its “aura.”

• Later, French Marxist critic Jean Baudrillard would call this the “precession of the simulacrum.” That is, individuals have no direct experience of anything: they always encounter an image or simulacrum before they have the real experience. The experience is thus never “real” in the sense that it is unmediated by the expectations created by the simulacrum.

EPILOGUEThe growing proletarianization

of modern man and the increasing formation of masses

are two aspects of the same process. Facism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without

affecting the property structure which the masses

strive to eliminate.

pro·le·tar·i·atˌprōləˈterēət/nounworkers or working-class people, regarded collectively (often used with reference to Marxism)."the growth of the industrial proletariat"

Facism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to

express themselves.

fas·cismˈfaSHˌizəm/noun1 often capitalized :  a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

The masses have a right to change property relations;

Facism seeks to give them an expression while preserving

property. The logical result of Facism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Facism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation

of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of

ritual values.

All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one

thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass

movements on the largest scale while respecting the

traditional property system. This is the political formula for

the situation. The technological formula may be

stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize

all of today’s technical resources while maintaining

the property system.

Benjamin was writing after WWI, the first great implementation of machine warfare, which created death on a massive scale never before seen in human history:17 MILLION dead 11 million military 7 million civilian20 million more wounded

It goes without saying that the Facist apotheosis of war does not employ such arguments.

Still, Marinetti says in his manifesto on the Ethiopian colonial war: “For twenty-

seven years we Futurists have rebelled against the branding

of war as antiaesthetic... Accordingly we state: ...War is

beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion

over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks,

terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks.

a·poth·e·o·sisəˌpäTHēˈōsəs/noun

•the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax."his appearance as Hamlet was the apotheosis of his career"

◦the elevation of someone to divine status; deification.

1935-36The Ethiopian Empire (also known as the Assyrians) attempted to fend of the invading Italian Kingdom.

Ethiopia lost and became part of Italian occupied territory in East Africa, Africa Orientale Italiana, under Mussolini.

Marinetti: Italian poet and founder of the Futurist movement(1876-1944)

War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of

metalization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow

with the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful

because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony. War is beautiful

because it creates new architecture, like that of the big tanks, the geometrical

formation flights, the smoke spirals from burning villages

and many others...

aes·thet·icesˈTHedik/adjective

•concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty."the pictures give great aesthetic pleasure"

noun

•a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement.

Futurism (Italian: Futurismo) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth and violence and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city.

Poets and artists of Futurism! ... remember these principles of an aesthetics of

war so that your struggle for a new literature and a new

graphic art... may be illumined by them!” ...

...Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which

collects, in the form of “human material,” the claims to which society has denied its natural material. Instead of draining

rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches;

instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary

bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way.

“Fiat ars--pereat mundus,” says Facism, and, as Marinetti admits, expects war to supply the artistic gratification of a sense perception that has

been changed by technology. This is evidently the

consummation of “l’art pour l’art.”

MAKE ART--let the world perish!

Art for Art’s Sake--late 19th-century Bohemian and artist’s creed decrying critics of art who demand “utility” over everything else.

This movement was an attempt to resist the enslavement of all labor, craft, and expression to capital and industry.

In England it produced what is known as the Arts and Crafts movement, in which artisans purposely looked back to older technologies and making objects by hand rather than machine-made “products.” This produced a nostalgic kind of medievalism in the late Victorian period.

Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the

Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has

reached such a degree that it can experience its own

destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This

is the situation of politics which Facism is rendering

aesthetic.

-1936

Walter Benjamin was born a German Jew.

He fled Germany upon Hitler’s assumption of power in 1932.

He killed himself September 25, 1940.