brookes77- Benjamin, 1/3/09

In Benjamin's reading, it discussed how art changes over time, and can be perceived in many different ways. First there is an "aura" and a "ritual" that art was first made for. Yet over time the meaning of the art and artifacts has changed and or becomes more clear: Benjamin states the "unique value of the authentic work for art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty". (22)
Benjamin then further talks about exhibition value of the work and cult value. He uses the example of cave men and how his work in the caves were shown to his men and the spirits, yet now looking back on their work, "cult value" today of his work , seems like it should be sacred. The value changes. Another interesting example Benjamin discussed was about captions; and how " captions given to pictures in illustrated magazines soon become more explicit and more "imperative in the media where the meaning of each single picture appears to be prescribed by the sequence of all preceding ones".I have noticed this more and more, there is less room for interpretation in photographs, for example of facebook. Captions are given leaving no room for confusion or throughout, which in a way, to me ruins art.
When discussing how actors in film represent themselves to the public in front of the camera i thought it was interesting that if an actor does not give the director an okay response/yell/etc. the director can use other resources when not filming to get the reaction out of the actor that he needs and "be cut into the screen version". It was interesting when he states that " art has left the realm of the 'beautiful semblance' which, so far had been taken to be the only sphere where art could thrive". To me this means art can only be shown through honesty, truth and existence, and acting can capture some of what art offers yet it lacks some type of truth that art and photography grasps and catches what the eye needs to understand the 'aura' of art.
The last section of the reading i enjoyed was comparing a painter to a camera man. Benjamin described the painter's work as more natural while a cameraman uses technology, equipment, capturing segments. He talks about how a painters include the ' total picture' while the cameraman 'consists of multiple fragments'. Yet Benjamin discusses how the cameraman's work is closer to reality then painting because of advances in technology, yet they are both artists with different values that tackle art in different ways like the example of the surgeon and the magician.