I recently re-read (after 30 years or so) Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1955). Of note:
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be...The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity...The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical--and, of course, not only technical--reproducibility...technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself...the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition." But, I suggest, this is part of the myth of the origin. Comments are closed.
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