Documentation:Benjamin
Walter Benjamin was a German philosopher and critic, one of the most important members of the Frankfurt School and a key figure in the development of Marxism. His 1936 essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility" is a critical work that examines the role of art and technology and their ability to inspire change, and its influence helped shape the views of other important Marxist figures such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse.
Biography
Walter Benjamin was born in 1892 to Emil Benjamin and Pauline Schönflies. Raised in Berlin, Benjamin attended the Kaiser Friedrich School in Charlottenburg before moving on to the Humboldt University of Berlin to study philosophy following a brief stint at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in 1912. He was elected president of the Free Students Association, a position that allowed him a platform to express his ideas regarding the necessity of cultural change, but when he was not re-elected the following year, he returned to the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg and began travelling to France and Italy.[1]
Benjamin earned his doctoral degree cum laude in 1919 with his dissertation The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism, but he was unable to support himself financially and moved back in with his parents. He published "The Critique of Violence" in 1921, at which time he met his lifetime peer Leo Strauss. He met Theodor W. Adorno and Georg Lukács (both of whom would be become important Marxist critics, along with Benjamin himself) two years later in 1923, the same year that the Institute for Social Research was founded, which would later become home to the Frankfurt School. He spent the next several years in some financial distress, translating works from Marcel Proust and writing for a variety of newspapers to make ends meet, before briefly working as an instructor at the University of Heidelberg in 1929.
After the Nazis began to take power in Germany, Benjamin left Germany and eventually settled in Paris for some time. He began collaborating with Max Horkheimer, who in 1936 published an initial French version of Benjamin's hugely influential "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility" in the Institute for Social Research's Journal for Social Research. In 1938, the Nazi Régime stripped the German Jewish population of their citizenship, and Benjamin was arrested by French police and imprisoned for three months. In 1940, he planned to escape the Gestapo by fleeing to the United States; however, expecting to be caught by the Nazis, Benjamin committed suicide in Portbou, Catalonia on September 25, 1940 with an overdose of morphine tablets.[2]
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility
Benjamin's 1936 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility is perhaps his most important and influential piece of writing. The essay focuses on the roles that art and technology play in the proletariat's recognition of the corrupt power structures under which they operate. Benjamin claims that "the concepts which are introduced into the theory of art differ from those now current in that they are completely useless for the purposes of fascism. On the other hand, they are useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art".[3]Benjamin's central argument is that as art becomes more easily replicable, thereby reaching a wider audience, and as the mediums through which it presents itself more fully embrace their artificiality, so too does its revolutionary impact greaten. In the age of technological reproduction, a work becomes separated from its "aura", from its authenticity, and consequently ceases to have its basis and ritual and moves instead into the realms of politics.[4]Art, as it is reproduced, loses autonomy, and thereby becomes political in nature.
Benjamin sees film as the art from most inherently conducive to revolution, as it is both the most replicable medium and the one that separates itself most firmly from its audience.[5]Because film is edited and presented through a camera, the audience has no human relationship with the actors on display; an observer takes on the role of a critic, of the camera itself, and takes an approach of testing the piece of art they are observing.[3]Furthermore, film, "by virtue of its shock effects,"[6] panders to a distracted audience, and a distracted audience is more likely to undergo radical changes in apperception.
Benjamin argues that film marks a significant step in the development of art towards becoming an effective tool of revolution, as it removes the notion of authenticity and encourages a critical attitude toward any given piece. This "politicization of art" (Benjamin 411), for Benjamin, is part of the ongoing fight against fascism and other oppressive power structures, which seeks to uphold art's cult value. In this claim, Benjamin presents himself as an optimistic Marxist, and thereby distinguishes himself from the likes of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkeheimer, whose "The Culture Industry" is in part a response to and refutation of Benjamin's essay.
Key Terms[7]
Aura - An object's "here and now"; the uniqueness of a thing and the experience that comes with it; the aura is separated from a piece of art when it is reproduced as its uniqueness is overcome.
Cult Value - One of two types of artistic reception: the value that a work has in terms of magic and ritual. The cult value of a work of art refers to that work's ability to uphold certain values or social orders by its appearing as an "instrument of magic" (Benjamin 400), by its serving a particular ritual.
Exhibition Value - The second type of artistic reception: art is now defined in terms of its exhibition value, the degree to which it is exhibited on a large scale to be seen by many and convey information and ideas.
References
- ↑ [1], http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Walter_Benjamin.aspx.
- ↑ [2], http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/walter-bendix-schnflies-benjamin-3154.php
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility”. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Robert Dale Parker. New York: Oxford, UP, 2012. Print. 396.
- ↑ Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility”. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Robert Dale Parker. New York: Oxford, UP, 2012. Print. 399-400.
- ↑ Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility”. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Robert Dale Parker. New York: Oxford, UP, 2012. Print. 398.
- ↑ Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility”. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Robert Dale Parker. New York: Oxford, UP, 2012. Print. 409.
- ↑ Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility”. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Robert Dale Parker. New York: Oxford, UP, 2012. Print. 396-400.