Reading 1: The Message is the Medium

Q : What are the new mediums we are heading for? Which old mediums will act as ‘content’ for these new mediums and how will these mediums affect our social behavior, lifestyle and perception of self?

Reading 2: Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Page 4: ‘To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of perception whose ” sense of universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction’

Page 5: ‘Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics’

Q: Reproduction of art destroys its aura. Can art without an aura still be considered as art? How does the change in function of art, change the expression of art and art itself? Does it make it less of an art and more of a tool to propagate an agenda?

Page 13: ‘Clearly this is at bottom the same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator.’

Q: ‘Masses seek distraction’, is this true? Can this be associated with the concept of art as a commodity? Is this one of the root causes for the desire of masses to own rather than admire art and its aura?