Gwatter06, 9/8

Our discussions in class this week were very interesting, but didn’t seem as engaging as the week before. I enjoyed our continued coverage of Benjamin in our Tuesday class session. In this discussion we went over originality and authenticity. It was interesting to see the dilemma behind what makes and distorts authenticity and originality. We used popular examples like the Mona Lisa, explaining how there are millions of copies of the art but there remains only one true original form in which is locked up in a museum. The Mona Lisa is a perfect example of a problem that Benjamin has found with reproduction. Benjamin explains that, “by making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.” (21) I completely agree with Benjamin in this sense, especially with art. For too many years now the “unique existence” of art and other forms of expressionism has been lost or rendered through reproduction. This concept can be related to modern instances and concepts as well. I see many cases where people choose to change their style, life choices or interests because of repetition. I alluded to an example of this from a video we saw in class in CMC100 called “The Merchants of Cool.” What we went over in class and what I understand from the readings is that in the modern era art is completely changing and might be connected to postmodernism. Benjamin provides an example of this by stating, “Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness…[this] differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye” (22). We discussed in class that you could take a picture in which makes the aesthetics mobile and can be sent and used in different areas. All in all the discussions in class remain to be intellectual and is a learning experience each time which is always helpful.