Benjamin Assignment

A) The aura of a work of art is perception of distance from a work, its inherent uniqueness.

B) Mechanical reproduction according to Benjamin was something that brought art to the viewer; it met the audience halfway in that it was possible to make works in massive quantities so that they could be brought into the home. This in turn was a process that extracted the aura of a work because it was stripped of its uniqueness.

C) Mechanical reproduction emancipated works of art by the negation of labor intensive, time consuming process. There is no longer a ritual to follow when all the work is done by a machine, the technical skill that was once primary, became secondary and the reverence of an artist’s position was diminished. Conceptualizing ones design was a way to adapt to this new direction. The ideas an artist starts with became paramount and the works became more and more abstract.

D) Some processes changing art are: rapid prototyping; 3D printers, Laser printing on canvas, digital photography, computer generated graphics, web sites, assembly lines, factories.