Although I happened to have gotten confused about what
reading to do last week, I think it actually worked out for the best because I
learned some new things during and after class, which you may find interesting.
During class we discussed Benjamin’s whole idea. We began with the initial
concept of the “aura” and how he believes it begins to lose its meaning in the
“age of mechanical reproduction”. In this aspect, I would have to disagree. I
feel that the aura of a piece of art is present no matter how often it may be
reproduced and propagated throughout the world. I am sure many of us have
replicas of pieces of art in our homes. No, they are not the originals but they
will do. Having gone to the museums and seen the originals in person, I can say
that I appreciate them even more. I can definitely tell the difference between
the original and my copy in a frame. Of course, Benjamin’s discussion takes us
further…into politics.
He feels that the use of technology has led to a negative
affect on art. There is a dark side of the force (yes….star wars reference). What
I found interesting was that after this discussion in class, we had a guest
speaker come into our French seminar to discuss photography and literature.
During his presentation, he focused on Barthes and his views on photography,
the capturing of the moment, the feelings we encounter when looking at a photo.
He then went on to show us two pictures. Although he placed the photographs
side by side, they were taken by two different photographers for two very different
reasons. One of them struck me more than the other (of course, I don’t remember
who took the picture or I would have placed it on the blog….so anyone that was
in that seminar that remember, send it my way). Anyway, it was a picture taken
by a photographer during the Nazi regime. The photograph had a picture of a
man, nicely dressed, and his pure bred dog. They were both looking away from
the camera at different things. Looking at this picture, I felt cold. They were
so statue like and frigid which is what I would have imagined them to be (of
course, not the dog but as some people say, the dog can look like the owner).
He then informed us that that picture was actually not accepted by the Nazis because
they did not feel it represented them and the photographer was asked to stop. The
reason I brought this up is because it reminded me of our discussion in class
and how Benjamin did not like how art was used (or duplicated) to take on
different things rather than maintain its aura. In this case, I feel like we
can clearly understand Benjamin. The photographer had an intention, which was
to capture the moment showing the average Nazi in its true form, but because it
did not align with the Nazis intentions, they did not want it. They did not
like the aura present and did not want it duplicated and spread about.
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