Week 2 readings

Walter Benjamin's article opens with a quote from Paul Valery dated 1931:

"Just as water, gas and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual and auditory images which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign."

This is a premonition of the Internet. Not to say that Valery predicted specifically what would become known as the Information Superhighway, but let's just say he could see which way the wind was blowing. He took the current state of media and advanced it to it's logical conclusion because he could see that images and audio were becoming commodified just like water, gas and electricity.

Benjamin's interest in the "aura" is something to be measured against the topic of "authenticity." Does new art suffer from a lack of aura? Do people have aura? Authenticity may have a more pragmatic connotation as opposed to aura, the latter being a transfixing quality most people seem to associate with people. If not a person, than an anthropomorphized work of art that facilitates the human connection. A photo does not have aura, according to Benjamin, but the trademark of post-WWII artists, such as filmmakers like Spike Lee, is considered to have aura, despite that they follow the mechanical production integral to the photographic arts. Spike Lee employs an artistic conceit in all his films where the actor will ride the dolly and create an otherworld effect as the camera moves. Alfred Hitchcock also places his aura on every film he ever made, by including a humorous cameo early in the film's story.

The Adorno-Horkheimer piece is a relentlessly pessimistic view of culture that struck me as being quite contemporary. I was shocked when I learned how old it was, although I shouldn't have been surprised based on the prescient reference to "Mrs. Miniver." This dynamic duo writes that "the purposelessness of the great modern work of art depends on the anonymity of the market." What a dystopian vision of art. But yet, it is true. The market is indeed a random collection of fans looking for the next big thing. Adorheimer speak of how art is no longer consumed by the connoisseur but the prestige-seeker. Dare I say that the prestige-seeker is also an aura-seeker?

Woody Allen's newest film deals with a man, Gil, played by Owen Wilson who is in love with the aura of Paris in the 1920's. Through the magic of filmmaking he can transport himself into that time to consume the artistic pleasures of a city where Dali, Bunuel, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and other luminaries are accessible to him. Gil's love extends beyond just aura as he is also a prestige-seeker, but not to the extent that his sworn enemy is. The enemy is branded by Gil as a pseudo-intellectual; a prestige-seeker of the lowest order.

The final piece of reading from Week 2 was "The Public Sphere" by Jurgen Habermas. The public spehere is defined as "a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Habermas writes: "The bourgeouis public sphere could be understood as the sphere of private individuals assembled into a public body..." At least this much is true of the collective of artists in Allen's newest movie. In this film, Stein, Porter, Man Ray and the aforementioned artists are a collective of public figures. Adored public figures, I might add. But their public sphere is so privileged, talented and elite that is most certainly not what Habermas is talking about. The shared experience, the collective consciousness that is a part of our social lives is not something at work.