ARC 597 | BLOW-UP Scale, Spectacle, and Spontaneity in Architecture

The article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin provides an explicit analysis of how transformation of art in time could modify not only its techniques but also the notion of art itself. The author elicits different changes in our perception of the art by pervasive nature of mechanization and automation. New techniques of art works’ reproduction, as a lithography or printing, allowed to produce creative works in quantity, thus accelerate development of automation of creative processes. By means of these advancements in techniques nowadays we have photography and film making, which radically changed reproduction of creative works and at the same time our perception and understanding of a “true art”. According to the author, any reproduction of art is always deprived of “its unique existence at the place where it happens to be”. Hence, the work of art loses its unique “aura” and it negatively affects its authority. On the one hand it promoted our acceptance of reproduction and “sense of universal equality of things.” On the other hand, it could promote an authority of the art work, by means of attracting attention of the public and at the same time encouraging people to experience a unique “aura” of the original piece of art.

Advancements in technologies affect not only our perception of art but also our life and culture itself by means of different media. All kinds of new media transform our previous traditions and habits. With a high pace of technological development we achieved efficiency and extended our abilities with help of different media. M. McLuhan’s work on “The Medium is The Message” depicts pervasive power of the message achieved by medium. According to him, “content of any medium is always another medium”. Media is a mean of our interaction with the world or other human beings or even “an extension of ourselves”. So, different forms of art are a communication tool and any changes in forms of its delivery affects human perception of it.

In these ambiguous circumstances human awareness of the action of media and its pervasive nature could evoke our individual reaction and prevent an acceptance of media impact. Moreover, our society is always surrounded by diverse kinds of media, so it influences human sense perception and acts on a psychological level inevitably. Hence, mankind exposed itself to irreversible change in the name of technologies.