Walter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility'

L’introduzione a questa traduzione italiana presenta tutti i testi in cui Benjamin cita/usa la figura di Mickey Mouse: a) il frammento “Micky Maus”; b) “Esperienza e povertà; c) l’appunto W8a,5 dei Passages di Parigi; d) e il paragrafo 16 della seconda versione del saggio sull’opera d’arte. Questi testi formano una “costellazione” in cui Benjamin testa e valuta una serie di suggestioni che emergono dal contesto dei suoi scritti degli anni Trenta: la questione del corpo, l’Unmensch, la perdita dell’esperienza, la riproducibilità tecnica, ecc. – e, ovviamente, le implicazioni politiche della trasformazione che Mickey Mouse rappresenta e mette in scena. Questi testi, a loro volta, formano anche una costellazione col nostro tempo, in cui ci troviamo ancora ad affrontare la necessità di disattivare i limiti che separano l’organico e la macchina, l’umano e l’animale, il femminile e il maschile, e di inventare un nuovo rapporto tra l’umano, la tecnica e la natura, e una nuova organizzazione sociale, economica e sessuale.

The chapter presents all Benjamin's texts citing/using the figure of Mickey Mouse: a) “Mickey-Mouse”; b) “Experience and Poverty”; c) the entry W8a,5 of the Arcades Project; d) and chapter 16 of the second version or the Artwork essay. These texts constitute a “constellation” in which Benjamin puts to the test and evaluates a series of suggestions arising from the context of his writings in the 1930: the question of the body, the Unmensch, the loss of experience, mechanical reproduction, etc. – and, of course, the political implications of the transformation Mickey Mouse represents and stages. These texts are, in turn, also in a constellation with our times, in which we are still faced by the necessity of deactivate the limits separating the organic and the machine, human and animal, female and male, and to invent a new relation between the human, technology and nature and a new social, economic and sexual organization.

Il fenomeno cinematografico di Mickey Mouse affascinò profondamente Walter Benjamin. Il “Walter Benjamin Archive” conserva una serie di ritagli di giornale in francese e tedesco su Disney e Mickey Mouse che mostrano come il filosofo seguisse con attenzione il progressivo sviluppo di quello che, già negli anni Trenta, era un vero e proprio fenomeno culturale. Da qui una intensa riflessione operata da Benjamin su Michey Mouse, sparsa in diversi frammenti e opere. Per la prima volta a livello mondiale, questo volume raccoglie tutte le analisi dedicate da Benjamin a Topolino, introdotte da un’importante saggio del curatore, Carlo Salzani, che ricostruisce la storia del fenomeno culturale di Mickey Mouse in Germania negli anni Trenta e la sua portata nella filosofia benjaminiana. Introduzione e cura di Carlo Salzani.

Walter Benjamin’in birçok kuramsal çalışmaya esin kaynağı olan “Tekniğin Olanaklarıyla Yeniden Üretilebildiği Çağda Sanat Eseri” (1936) isimli makalesinden günümüze, sanat eserinin “aura”sı ya da  “hale”si tartışma konusu olmayı sürdürmektedir. Benjamin, sanat eserinin sahip olduğu “hale’yi” o sanat eserinin zaman ve uzam içindeki buradalığı, eserin meydana getirilmiş bulunduğu yerdeki biricik varlığı olarak tanımlar ve sanat eserinin halesinin biriciklik, gelenek, tarihe tanıklık, yaklaşılmazlık gibi etmenlerin birleşiminden doğduğunu iddia eder. Benjamin, teknik yeniden üretim çağında sanat eserinin sınırsız sayıda yeniden üretilmesi sonucu halesinin yitip gittiğini belirtir.
Dijital sanat çeşitleri Walter Benjamin’in “hale” tanımı açısından ele alındığında birçoğunun Benjamin’in kıstaslarına uymadığını, ancak halenin tümüyle yitirilmediğini, aksine farklı medya biçemlerinde yeniden biçimlendirildiğini gözlemleriz.
Bu çalışmanın amacı, Benjamin’in “hale” kavramının dijital sanata nasıl yansıdığını tartışmaktır. Çalışmada özellikle sanal gerçeklik, artırılmış gerçeklik, tele-mevcudiyet gibi dijital sanat çeşitlerinden örnekler verilerek dijital yeniden üretimin, Benjamin’in iddia ettiği gibi “hale”yi tümüyle yok etmediği ancak yeniden biçimlendirerek “sanal hale’ye dönüştürdüğü savı tartışılacaktır.

I examine how two pivotal writers of the 20th century, Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin, attached a catalogue of meanings to the Eiffel Tower.

The Parisian monument marked a critical point in artistic production – a fusion of architectural thought and innovatory engineering. Looking at the claims made about the Tower by Barthes and Benjamin, I will attempt to show how their discussion fits into a broader framework of thinkers’ inquiries.

For Barthes, the tower epitomises his semiotic exploration of the nature of the myth. In turn, Benjamin translates the monument into a testing ground for shifts occurring in the culture of spectatorship and image production at the end of the nineteenth century.

My analysis will try to examine how successful those two respective takes on the Eiffel Tower are in terms of proving their validity; where do they find a common ground and where do they stand in opposition to one another.

Be Kind Rewind, as spoken by the film’s title, one may understand the trick that hides behind as Rewind is also associated with the same consonance Remind telling us a film that shares the collective memory of the public. The concept of the Society of Spectacle is brought forward by Guy Debord in 1970s, which he sheds lights on the class alienation, commodification of cultural products (Debord, 1967) as well as the role of mass media’s metamorphosis in staging the so called “reality” on TV, is considered to be a mainstream channel in 1970s-1980s for people to obtain the news and enjoy entertainment. With this concept, we draw the central theme of discussing this with the film Be Kind Rewind in which it stages how the antique video rental store is forced to be demolished and the adventure that the new generation help renew the product and share the collective memory, going back to the theme of commodity fetishism (Jappe, 1999). The sense of nostalgia as well as the conflict of urbanization and modern development makes it an echo to the concept of the spectacle of making the class alienated through the commodification process of video rental store and also alienate the old people from the rapid development of the modern city. With the revival of reshooting the film with no budget, it connects closely to the concept of the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction that Walter Benjamin put forward that the unique existence of the work of the art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence (Benjamin, 1955). Most importantly, while we watch this film, the real life example that happens in Hong Kong media industry would be Asia Television (ATV) that they stage their "Rescue Our ATV Show" in order to save their company by attracting the "potential investors". The television under such circumstance is not limited to provide information and showing the greatest entertainment programme but becomes a spectacle to ask for money yet not in a glamourous and commodified manner. In light of this, this research is going to explore how mechanical reproduction alienates our society from the real life and how commodification of cultural product especially in Hong Kong TV industry make themselves become the spectacle in this day and age by carrying out content and textual analysis of the above mentioned cases. It would offer a theoretical contribution in which society of spectacle not only brings the success of TV industry but also actually polarizes the TV industry into the "mass" product and only through exposing its weakness to the audiences as to save the reputation and attract upcoming investors. Keywords: ATV, Commodification, Class Alienation, Mechanical Reproduction,

The Renaissance Gaze Shift in portraiture and socio-economics of 15th century Europe, shifted aesthetics from profile to direct gaze and wealth from the nobility to the merchant class. Yet, its true revolutionary, democratizing effect was the celebration of a new portrait subject: the “common” individual. This paper demonstrates the evolution in portraiture from Florentine profile portrait (adopted from the revered Greco-Roman profile) to Flemish ¾ averted gaze portrait trend and ultimately head-on stare. Embodying the humanistic concept of “self-fashioning” as put forth in Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortigiano, this dynamic hallmark effect is anachronistically shared with today’s digital self-portraits. Pisanello’s profile medallions, Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci and contemporary digital media imagery illustrate the aesthetic and social shift, arriving at the “selfie” as rooted in the Renaissance Gaze, the visual ancestor which asserted modernity, identity, newfound wealth and power, while directly confronting artist/viewer/self and presciently forecasting the future.

En 2013, Milon de Crotone retrouvait la place que lui avait attribuée Louis XIV, à l’entrée du Tapis Vert des jardins de Versailles.
Pas le marbre de Puget : mis à l’abri au musée du Louvre dès
le début du XIXe
siècle, il est trop précieux pour être exposé aux
intempéries. C’est un moulage du chef-d’œuvre, en résine agglomérée à de la poudre de marbre, qui a été placé sur le socle
de l’original. Celui qui veut voir le Milon de Puget a donc le choix
entre le Louvre et Versailles, pour voir soit l’œuvre originale soit
l’œuvre dans son lieu original. Cette opération a pris place dans
une campagne plus large de mise à l’abri et de substitution des
originaux par des moulages, depuis 2008. Or, loin d’une dispersion de l’aura, ces moulages répondent à la mission qui leur a
été attribuée, retransmettre l’expérience de l’œuvre d’art : juchés
sur leurs socles, présentés par un cartel, ils sont photographiés
par le public qui en majorité ignore qu’il s’agit de reproductions.
Quel est le statut de ces objets ? Que fait-on des moulages
lorsqu’on les expose ? Pour le comprendre, nous avons interrogé
le public et les professionnels sur l’exposition et la conservation
de ces moulages.

In 2013, the statue of Milo of Croton regained the place attributed
to him by Louis XIV, at the entrance to the Tapis Vert in the
gardens of Versailles. It is not Puget’s marble: sheltered in the
Louvre at the start of the 19th century, it is too precious to be
subject to the elements. Instead, a cast of the masterpiece, in
resin agglomerated with marble powder, is exposed in place of
the original. Therefore, anyone who wants to see Puget’s Milo
has the choice between the Louvre and Versailles, of seeing the
original work or the work in its original location. This substitution
was part of a larger campaign, which began in 2008. Far from a
dispersion of aura, these casts respond to the mission assigned
to them, to transmit the experience of the masterpiece: perched
on their pedestals, with label, they are photographed by the
public, most of whom are unaware that they are reproductions.
What is the status of these objects? We questioned members of
the public as well as professionals on the exhibition and conservation of these casts

In the notorious paragraph 9 of Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, the author asks, rhetorically, whether when we perform a pure judgment of taste, taking pleasure in a beautiful object comes first and only then does any aesthetic judgment follow or if it is the other way around. While elaborating this question by way of other parts of the third Critique, namely, the hierarchization of various types of art, the possibilities of cultivation of taste, and the unnecessity of the actual presence of an object for aesthetic evaluation, I would like to emphasize and strengthen the political intimations which are otherwise more emphatic in Kant's other texts. In the second part, these traits will be related to the concept of an object of art as understood by Walter Benjamin and how it relates to emancipation, which was an important concern for both thinkers.