Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility Premise: centrality of media technology in the production (and capacity) of modern culture Note text and type just one medium among many… In the 19 Theses, I see four main themes at work

Four Themes in Work of Art Theses I to IV: Media as the medium between the base and superstructure Theses V to VIII: Room for Play as a radical renunciation of eternal value Theses IX to XVII: Film Action as a model and transformation of all Social Action Theses XVIII & XIX: Futility within Capitalist Relations, leads to Fascism

Thesis I Early historical materialism (i.e. Marx) was formulated in infancy of capitalism Relation between culture and economy, structure and superstructure is only now possible to see in maturity

Thesis II Techno Repro makes art accompany everyday life Art keeps pace with speech and action Sound film (in 1935) is the apex of potential for art

Thesis III Reproduction has no history History and unique trace is source of aura Aura withers in the age of Techno Repro Substitutes a mass existence for uniqueness, liquidates value of tradition

Thesis IV That premise is not techno determinism The medium is conditioned by both history and nature, all perception is cultural Thus, decay of aura is response of the masses’ desire for experience. Aligns the masses with reality (and vice versa)

Thesis IX Film rejects mere copying and embraces the capacity for editing Use natural means to give convincing expression to the fairylike, the marvelous, the supernatural (Utopian imaginary?)

Thesis X Film reproduces its own production Film art comes only in montage Film actor is in a state of “test”, so that screen test is the epitome of acting Experience of masses itself is “test” confronted with the apparatus Film makes this test capable of exhibition

Thesis XI Film actor merely acts him or herself Completely forgoing aura and identity and essence No original, no aura, in film acting

Thesis XII Film actor is displaced before the masses Masses control the image BUT PROVISO: Not possible under capitalism, not as a mass audience… Question: Needs to be mass without being mass audience? How possible?

Thesis XIII Newsreel: everyone can be film actor Has parallels in newspapers, in bureaucracy, in democracy, in literacy… Distinction between author and public is no longer axiomatic BUT PROVISO: Not yet true for Hollywood

Thesis XIV Film Spectator, like the film actor, always has the camera (apparatus) in view Cinematographer penetrates, is a surgeon of reality Film provides the equipment-free possibility of interpenetration of reality with the technology (with the apparatus?) We are all cinematographers of reality…

Thesis XV Techno Repro changes relation of masses to art, infuses pleasure into appraisal In cinema, individual reaction is concentration of a mass reaction

Thesis XVI Social Function of cinema is equilibrium of humans and the apparatus Insight into the necessities governing lives Assures vast, unsuspected room-for-play (speilraum, field of action, gambling den)

Thesis XVII Film achieves goal of dadaism: Tactile, percussive constant change and loss of aura

Thesis V Art’s origins in cult and religious ritual But techno repro experience is based on politics!

Thesis VI History of Art infuses humans into the representation… Techno Repro takes them out, leaves room-for-play, interplay between nature and culture First mention of film: Trains apperception to deal with a vast apparatus… FN 11.

Thesis VII Face value, approval, cult value finds its last refuge in early photography As humans fades from focus, exhibition value becomes total, context is total, captions become obligatory

Thesis VIII State of technology compelled Greeks to give eternal values to art (because statues and bronzes) We lie on opposite pole with film… focus on editing and change, room for improvement in every shot Radical renunciation of eternal values

Thesis XVIII Mass produces different kind of participation The disreputable character of entertainment is flipside of devotion The distracted masses absorb the art into themselves… in becoming a mass, but also litterally in the play of light, lichtspeil

Thesis XIX HOWEVER (one last proviso)… Spectre of fascism shows that granting people expression without rights, leaving property relations intact, merely aestheticizes the political, leads to war. In this realm, only war sets mass goals while leaving property relations intact

On the one hand, an essentially contemporary theory of ComCult, in 1935! Empirically grounded, historicized, playful reading of media in culture