Benjamin’s argues in the exert from his book “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” that throughout history, each sources gives us a different perspective of the event that occurred and enables the viewer to interpret the past from the eyes of the creator.
“For example, in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will. And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision.” (Benjamin, 220)
However, although technological advancements such as cameras allowed people to truly depict a scene of what happened in the past, each source is again subject to how the viewer wishes to perceive it. I believe this reading neatly connects to Halbwach’s argument that our immediate environments have the ability to influence and manipulate our memories. Our social context control, too, the ways in which we perceive an event to have happened and to draw conclusions from different sources such as paintings, photographs, and visual performances. Each source is subject to some form of bias, either from the creator themselves, or those who are viewing them. With the multitude of sources that are available for us to narrate the past, the beholder now become a ‘critic’, where he/or she is able to create a narrative from which they believe is what was occurring in a specific source. We hand the responsibly of maintaining history away from those who actually experienced it themselves, to instead every person in the modern era, allowing them to critique and analyse the sources as they will, creating their own conclusions.