Walter Benjamin's Aura and Mechanical Reproduction of Art

Introduction: Benjamin's Concept of Aura

In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin attempts to describe how the advent of industrialization has changed the way art is produced, transmitted, and received, and the effect these changes have had on the notion of art itself. Benjamin's argument centers on the concept of a work's "aura," which he defines as "the unique appearance of a distance" — meaning the unique, individual experience of a work in time and space that cannot be reproduced in the same way that the work itself can (Benjamin 2004: 795). In order to better understand Benjamin's notion of aura and the way photography, film, and other reproduced images contribute to its decay, one may consider an image of Benjamin himself as a case study in the changes produced by the mechanical reproduction of art.

Aura, Distance, and the Problem of Reproduction

When Benjamin talks about "distance," he is referring to distance not only in terms of space but also time, because the particular historical context and origin of a work of art prior to the age of mechanical reproduction contributes to its aura in the same way that physical distance does. The only difference is that the viewer perceives temporal distance somewhat less directly than physical distance. Because a work's aura is dependent on — and in some ways constituted by — "its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be," mechanical reproduction cannot help but diminish it, since reproduction simultaneously unmoors the image from its original time and space (Benjamin 2004: 793). This is, in fact, how Benjamin introduces and formulates the concept of aura: by identifying it as the thing that mechanical reproduction destroys or diminishes.

From Cult Value to Exhibition Value

After initially describing the concept of aura, Benjamin goes on to describe its relationship to the use and utility of art. This is where the discussion becomes most interesting, because Benjamin demonstrates how the loss of aura is not merely a question of artistic snobbery or nostalgia for a lost tradition, but rather signals a more fundamental change in the way art functions and influences society. Benjamin notes that over the course of human history, art went through a transition from being primarily a magical or shamanic tool to being valued as art in and of itself (Benjamin 2004: 795–798). In the former case, art was appreciated primarily for its "cult value," but this changed as methods of production evolved (Benjamin 2004: 795). In a similar way, the mechanical reproduction of art has precipitated another change in the use and value of art: as a work's cult value decreases along with its aura, its "exhibition value" increases, precisely because the work can now be exhibited in any time or space (Benjamin 2004: 798).

Conclusion: Aura in the Digital Age

By examining a photo of Benjamin himself, one can better understand how mechanical — and ultimately digital — reproduction serves to erase the aura from a work such that its unique position in time and space is replaced by the potential to exist in every time and space. While legitimate arguments remain as to whether this is a positive or negative development for society and human culture, understanding Benjamin's argument is crucial for understanding culture following the development of photography and film. At this point, practically all of human experience and society is constituted by reproductions, such that original works are largely relegated to the sphere of novelty and have less use or utility than their far more mobile copies. The ubiquity of the internet only makes Benjamin's theory more important, even as the image of Benjamin himself spreads out across time and space alongside every other image captured by contemporary capitalist society.