Study Task 2

Benjamin, W. (1936) 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'

• Copies can never be exactly identical – the original is unique in time, space, technique. 
• Many forms of art can be reproduced – paintings, sculpture, drama e.t.c
• Many practices we categorize as art today, such as photography and film-making, was not classified as art in the past.
• The aura is said to be the thing that is lost through mechanical reproduction of art that makes the original unique.
• Because mechanical reproduction is easier today, value is placed over quality and not quantity.

Quotes from the text:

• "In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artefacts could always be imitated by men."
• "Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photograpy is an art. The primary question - whether the very invention of photograph had not transformed the entire nature of art - was not raised."
• "War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system."

McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

• How much the audience is included in a form of expression is dependent on the type of medium; hot or cool.
• Hot mediums might take some time to “cool off” or be forgotten before it becomes a cool medium and stops shocking people.
• Sometimes cool mediums can be more effective, due to the eye filling in the missing details and making it more powerful.
• Hot mediums have the power to disrupt cultures living with and used to cool mediums.
• Types of jokes can be hot or cool too, and I (coming from a country with a hot -joke habit) couldn’t get most of the sarcastic, cool jokes in the U.K.

Quotes from the text:

• “In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message.”
• “The alphabet, when pushed to a high degree of abstract visual intensity, became typography.”
• “The open-mesh silk stocking is far more sensuous than the smooth nylon, just because the eye must act as hand in filling in and completing the image, exactly as in the mosaic of the TV image.”