C+ Gang - Week 4 - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

This week's question: Does the concept of "aura" that was present in traditional art forms reappear in interactive artworks?

To start things off, we identified that many examples throughout the text showed that aura disappears from artwork when it faces mechanical reproduction. As shown when Benjamin explores the idea that "authentic" art is viewed within specific context through tradition, which is what gives it its unique quality, "aura" is created in the eyes of the spectator. Moreover, he also says that "technical" reproduction can put the output out of the reach of the original concept. So, what does that mean in regards to interactive artwork? To attempt answering this question, we took a closer look at quotes such as:

"The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a scene than it is already changed." (17)

Discounting the occasional very original interactive installations that create their own "aura", we quickly agreed that interactive artwork in general fails to recreate the concept. Ergo, the "aura" of artwork fades due to the lack of physical presence. When discussing it, we felt like most of the objects that would have an "aura" would be things that are very unique and have a distinct presence in the physical realm and that recreations of such objects lack that concept as they don't have the same "firstness" that Mitchell introduced, when exploring the image. In other words, an original artwork has a history that determines the presence of realism that is lost in most interactive art. Furthermore, to explore the idea in even more depth, we talked about that for Benjamin, a film actor loses his aura, his body is as if stolen by the cinematographic apparatus, he becomes nothing more than an image subjected to public scrutiny, or a simple accessory. Following that idea, interactive artworks would only be accessories when taking into account that the whole is simply a gathering of virtual images within interactive installments.