For week three so far we’ve read Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibilty and Chapter 5 in UFT. Both of these I thought had a good class discussion that I may not have contributed to enough, so I thought I’d do so here, starting with Benjamin.

Chris and I were assigned to focus more on section VIII and IX (237,) which talked primarily about the “reproducibility” of ancient art vs. modern art. Benjamin writes that “Never before have artworks been technologically reproducible to such a degree and in such quantities as today.” Referring the fact that almost all art in modern times can be recreated. A movie is not shown once an discarded, it can go to VHS, DVD, and can be online as well. Reproduction is an incredibly important part of art now, which contrasts greatly with say, Ancient Greek art. Where works of art must embody the values of the time they were created in to form an accurate portrayal of the time, whereas film can be cataloged so easily to see the change in time. In addition to this, Benjamin writes that film can be improved in any desired way when ancient statues cannot be.  In section IX Benjamin writes about the impact photography had on art. Stating “the more fundamental question of whether the invention of photography had not transformed the entire character of art.” I think this even relates to the controlled accident in a way, as art was originally a metaphor for reality, when now it can be reality itself.

In chapter 5 of UTF, Marxism was discussed. I don’t know much about Marxism or comparative politics (I took a comparative politics course and we actually looked at Marxism a lot so that’s too bad) but I liked the connection that politics can have on the media industry. I guess a better way of saying that is it’s impressive what an impact it can have, not that I like it.

Nick Tassoni