2. • He was born in Berlin in 1892.
• His life was highly affected by the rise of Hitler, who
came to power in Germany in 1933. Benjamin’s brother
was arrested, and later died in a concentration camp.
• Benjamin went south with a group of friends, with
whom he tried to cross the border at Portbou, Spain.
His plan was to travel from Lisbon to New York, where
his colleagues in the Frankfurt School were awaiting
him. According to some sources, he might have been
able to cross the border without difficulty the day
before. But the rules had changed. Instead, he was
picked up by the police, who told him that he would be
sent back to France the next day, where doubtless the
Gestapo would be waiting.
3. • He got scared of the Gestapo and then he
committed suicide.
• This may have affected the police, because
they then permitted his compatriots to cross
the border.
• Basically we can say that his death saved the
lives of others.
4. Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the
Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
• This short piece provides a general history of
changes in art in the modern age. Benjamin’s
insight here is that each human sensory
perspective is not completely biological or
natural. It is also historical. The ways people
perceive change with social changes.
• Benjamin discusses a shift in perception and
its affects in the wake of the advent of film
and photography in the twentieth century.
5. Benjamin’s understanding of the Aura
• Benjamin here attempts to mark something
specific about the modern age; of the effects of
modernity on the work of art in particular. Film
and photography point to this movement.
Benjamin writes of the loss of the aura through
the mechanical reproduction of art itself. The
aura for Benjamin represents the originality and
authenticity of a work of art that has not been
reproduced. A painting has an aura while a
photograph does not; the photograph is an image
of an image while the painting remains utterly
original.
6. • Film, to Benjamin is the perfect example of art losing
its value for both the artist and the beholder of the art.
In fact, films have little to no artistic quality
whatsoever, especially when compared to stage
theater. The physical separation of the film actor from
the audience subsequently diminishes, even destroys,
the artistic quality of the acting which the film actor
presents.Benjamin maintains that the audience of a
film, whether or not they enjoy watching the film, is
deprived of the experience of observing true art
because they are not in the presence of the actor. For
something to be art, there needs to be a connection
between the beholder and the art itself.
7. • As a Marxist, Benjamin view changes in art as
indications of changes in the economical base
of material power relations. This is why
Benjamin employs the theory of dialectical
materialism in "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction" for the sake of
analyzing the changes that art goes through in
the 20th century.
8. • Dialectical materialism: Marx thought of the
dialectical nature of society and especially
history is built on the tradition of G.W.F. Hegel
which viewed history as a process of thesis,
antithesis and synthesis, with each force in
history creating an opposite one, driving
society forward.
9. • An interesting point raised by Benjamin in "The Work of Art
in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is the relations
between capitalism and fascism. Capitalism and fascism
meet at the point of alienation. Marx held that under
capitalism the worker is alienated from his own products of
work. In fascism this alienation is radicalized by the
complete deletion of the individual function. The epitome
of fascism according to Benjamin is the aestheticization of
war which turns violence into an aesthetic product. This
augments alienation since humanity can now joyfully
witness its own destruction. People's alienation from their
own products blinds them from seeing how these products
bear their doom. The aestheticised war turns it away from
the political realm into the realm of art where it can be
consumed rather than discussed.
10. • The Marxist counteraction to the aestheticization
of politics according to Benjamin should be the
politicization of the aesthetic. The politicization of
the aesthetic is conducted in two manners: by
identifying and resisting the ways art is exploited
and by identifying its revolutionary potential.
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction" is in itself such an attempt to
politicize aesthetics. The structure of culture is,
for Benjamin, the structure of society. While in
fascism the art comes from the leader, Marxist
art should originate from the people.
