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Contents 1 Walter Benjamin: Birth of a Digital Nation 1.1 Walter Benjamin and the Digital Artist 1.2 The Industrial and Digital Revolution 1.3 References

[edit] Walter Benjamin: Birth of a Digital Nation

Please bear in mind, this was written in the context of my best Frankfurt School, Neo-Marxist, Mass Cultural, Techno-Ambivalent voice and not to confused with my Brock University, Pro-Marxist, Popular Cultural, Techno-Optimistic voice.

[edit] Walter Benjamin and the Digital Artist

Benjamin regards the influence of art as coming from its ideas of space, distance, ritual, and tradition, primarily manifested in two values. The first - the cult value – is the internal conversation one has when creating art, where “their existence, not their being on view” (Benjamin 1111) is paramount. One’s sense of time, space, and self are re-negotiated in a manner that neither the mechanical, nor the digital, can compete with because the ontological understanding of one’s consciousness is at stake and not the technology. It is through distance both metaphysically and spatially that bears gravitas in conveying ‘aura’. It is also important to recognize that one must be careful when comparing the materials and tools of the ‘analog’ artist with those of the digital artist working entirely within the confines of the computer. In the digital realm, both the agent’s physical and cognitive experiences along with their tools radically change.

The other value and the more receptively based of the two – is the exhibition value. The fusing of the cult value and the exhibition value is what is perpetuated in what he refers to as ‘aura’. The destabilisation of aura occurs when the “technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition” (Benjamin 1108). Benjamin believed that mechanical reproduction and by modern extension, its digital progeny, dismantles the original intentions of art, that unique and ephemeral sense of connectedness one gets from not only participating in the act of creating works of art, but also in the presentation of art as a communal function. The concept of toiling in the creative process is equally as important as the pilgrimage of bearing witness to art’s beauty. Anything less would be profane. The protection of these innate sacred qualities of art, and in terms of tradition, is of great import to Benjamin, because reproduction in any array, denies the artist their creative endeavours because its hazard is twofold; it takes away one’s authority, and commodifies it at the same time. If aura represents the ‘spiritual’ element of art, then by virtue of simply creating or transposing art within the dominion of the computer is, by its very nature an anti-human (post-human) operation. The tangible and tactile significance of art was important to Benjamin and he “bemoaned the loss, in the modern era, of touch as the means whereby craftsmen could leave the imprint of their experience on their work” (Rampley 182). Of course, when Benjamin wrote this article in 1936, little did he know how much the mechanical reproduction of art would not only be changed, but also how seamlessly it would be supplanted by digital replication in a move - which by his reckoning - would probably be for the worse.

[edit] The Industrial and Digital Revolution

In Netocracy, Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist illustrate the differences between the Industrial and Digital Revolution:

The Industrial Revolution meant that human physical power was multiplied many times through the use of machines. The Digital Revolution means that the human brain will be expanded to an incomprehensible degree through its integration with electronic networks. But we are not there yet: the necessary preconditions are not yet in place. Technology may be accelerating with breathtaking speed, but we humans are slow (17).

Netocracy maintains that mechanical/digital progress has outstripped human progress. Although political progress and a politically active society was crucial to Benjamin and takes precedence in much of what he writes when “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” was published, Benjamin understood that the commodified image, as opposed to an artistic one, was a powerful tool of the Third Reich. The commodified image and its diverse forms of propaganda helped propagate the Nazi ideology of fear and hatred through their “aesthetizsation of politics…in its public rallies and party gatherings, and the films of Leni Riefenstahl such as Triumph of the Will (1935)” (Pelzer 204). He believed that art should politicize, not polarise, the masses.

In his Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man Friedrich von Schiller writes about the “most perfect of all works of art—the establishment and structure of a true political freedom” (7), but to what degree do politics and democracy play in the digital domain? Does this mean that technology and political power are mutually exclusive? The answer would have to be no. Outwardly, it is true that digital technology is more democratic because of its accessibility to, for, and by everyone, at least to those who have the money. Digital devices create the illusion that they afford political authority, when essentially they do not. A library card is a democratic device but having one does not make one political. It is more accurate to say that digital devices can be political; however, they are rarely used in this fashion.

Even though digital technology appears more democratic than its predecessors do, it does so at the expense of an experiential loss. What may have taken an artist several years, and in a number of cases several decades to master their craft, can now be accomplished within a number of weeks or months on a home computer. Eventually, this time is further reduced to minutes and seconds, as proficiency with the computer exponentially increases. However, it is important to note that the artist in this case is the computer, because the skill-sets are undoubtedly established within the software, not the individual. Mastery is determined not in the physical concept of creating an object with one’s own hands, something very endearing to Benjamin, it is reduced to mastery of the software and special keystrokes. Even mechanical modes of production were not privy to this, because mechanical engineers and operators alike had at least a semblance of technical mastery in order to work the machines.

Urgency and propinquity are also lost to the digital revolution when compared with the authenticity of art. An artist labouring several days or weeks on one work could easily have it irrevocably ruined with an errant flick of the wrist. Artistry comes at a cost, but the blood, sweat and tears are all part of the human experience. A similar error on a computer could simply be resolved by loading up a previously saved version, one without the blemishes. The physical artist in this case is “a survivor of the ‘hand age’ [living] in the age of the machine, and castigated [by] the ‘cruel inertia’ of photography as manifesting a ‘handless eye’ (Rampley 182-3). Also what role does serendipity play with computers, when digital artists can erase errors instead of keeping the blemishes and mistakes that comprise part of the art? Anyone visiting a museum understands that it is these very idiosyncrasies that are a part of the reverence, nay experience of art – its uniqueness if you will. On a purely superficial basis, a computer might seem like a forgiving teacher, but one must remember that ultimately the computer teaches us nothing, because when the computer is removed, the skills are no longer within, nor inherently part the user. Digital artists might argue that the computer is merely a tool that serves the same function as a paintbrush does to their analogue counterpart. A painter on the other hand (no pun intended), can still perform their trade with their archaic tools, which connects them to a heritage shared with countless other artists. They do this without the assistance of a keyboard, monitor, or power source, something the digital artist would be hard pressed to achieve.

[edit] References

Bard, Alexander & Jan Söderqvist. Netocracy: The New Power Elite and Life after Capitalism. Stockholm: Book House Publishing, 2002.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David Richter. Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998.1106-1122.

Pelzer, Ruth. “Technical Reproduction and its Significance.” Exploring Visual Culture, ed. Matthew Rampley. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. 197-213..

Rampley, Matthew. “Visual Practices in the Age of Industry.” Exploring Visual Culture, ed. Matthew Rampley. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. 179-196.

Schiller, Friedrich. Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man, ed. Elizabeth Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.