After reading Walter Benjamin, we were most interested in
his discussion of reproductivity’s impact on media consumption and on the idea
of originality. We found enlightening the contrast Benjamin draws between modes
of art consumption: he explains that art required concentration. One would contemplate
art and be consumed by it, whereas in the age of technical reproduction one
distractedly consumes art instead. Walter compares it to the consumption of
architecture through usage, almost unnoticed. This insight hints at the speed
of media today, where we rarely stop to be consumed by media anymore but rather
quickly absorb it. Benjamin’s concluding commentaries state that there was a discrepancy
between the power and speed of technology and the sociological adaptations to
it and that this led to war. In a way, people were not ready for the power of
their own creation, and we wondered if it is still the case today.
The question of originality as it relates to digital media
also intrigued us. Benjamin argues that with photography, the notion of an
original loses its sense, as there is no real sense in arguing that any print
is more original than another. We think this loss of the spatiality and
temporality of the original is even more pronounced with modern digital media. Benjamin
also remarks that there has been another shift in production, where now almost
everyone can consider themselves a writer. For us the rise of social media is
an example of this, which we also link to the democratization of media
discussed in earlier weeks. Nowadays, anyone can produce and reproduce their
own content. To us, this may be the phenomena by which “one could expect [the capitalist
mode of production] […] to create conditions which would make it possible to
abolish capitalism itself”. The absolute reproductivity of digital media eliminates
the necessity for scarcity in the digital world.
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