Page 15 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 15
foreword
I first read Benjamin‘s essays in the early 1970s, when his oeuvre – about
three decades after his later texts were written – had been increasingly rec-
ognised for its insights and style. Whatever I was working on throughout
the times of my journalistic and research work in such fields as film theo-
ry, education, philosophy and cultural studies, Benjamin’s “method” was
manifestly or secretly reminding me about the epistemological machin-
ery that unavoidably produces an aestheticized reality. Such reality became
visible through Benjamin’s inimitable writing, which I would call theoreti-
cal or reflexive descriptivism. In the age of new technological “revolutions”
Benjamin’s intuitions and visions are increasingly relevant. The strongest
case in his discussion of work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,
the film, is being transformed as digitalisation “de-materialized” or res-
cued it from its dependence on celluloid tape. The film’s potential for af-
fecting the sensible capacity of viewers acquired new dimensions. Like in
Benjamin’s time, few saw any structural relationship (indeed not really cor-
relation) between sound cinemas and rise of fascism nowadays the con-
sequences, for which a technical advancement could be instrumental, are
not clearly discernible – in spite of their being visible already to a superfi-
cial gaze. The expansion of possibilities for a cultural fulfilment on a mas-
sive scale simultaneously enables an eruption of a new kind of barbarism.
I realised that throughout the time of my different activities, I wrote a
number of papers for journals, lectures and conferences and so I took time
to put these papers together. Since most of them are dealing with artistic,
cultural and political phenomena, I could arrange them in different parts,
which are focused on some specific theoretical problems or specific fields
or phenomena. Although these texts, which were written over a period of
almost two decades, are not organised strictly in chronological order, I still
tried to indicate a trajectory of my own conceptual evolution.
I am just one of many such writers who finds out a fil rouge running
through different texts from different periods. Of course, the above-men-
tioned papers were mostly thoroughly reworked and restructured to some-
what round off what is a relatively fragmentary book. For the texts, which
were published already, bibliographical footnote is added. Finally, a possi-
bility to publish this work as a digital book matches the main book’s con-
tent: mass culture, which would be unthinkable without mass media.
13
I first read Benjamin‘s essays in the early 1970s, when his oeuvre – about
three decades after his later texts were written – had been increasingly rec-
ognised for its insights and style. Whatever I was working on throughout
the times of my journalistic and research work in such fields as film theo-
ry, education, philosophy and cultural studies, Benjamin’s “method” was
manifestly or secretly reminding me about the epistemological machin-
ery that unavoidably produces an aestheticized reality. Such reality became
visible through Benjamin’s inimitable writing, which I would call theoreti-
cal or reflexive descriptivism. In the age of new technological “revolutions”
Benjamin’s intuitions and visions are increasingly relevant. The strongest
case in his discussion of work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,
the film, is being transformed as digitalisation “de-materialized” or res-
cued it from its dependence on celluloid tape. The film’s potential for af-
fecting the sensible capacity of viewers acquired new dimensions. Like in
Benjamin’s time, few saw any structural relationship (indeed not really cor-
relation) between sound cinemas and rise of fascism nowadays the con-
sequences, for which a technical advancement could be instrumental, are
not clearly discernible – in spite of their being visible already to a superfi-
cial gaze. The expansion of possibilities for a cultural fulfilment on a mas-
sive scale simultaneously enables an eruption of a new kind of barbarism.
I realised that throughout the time of my different activities, I wrote a
number of papers for journals, lectures and conferences and so I took time
to put these papers together. Since most of them are dealing with artistic,
cultural and political phenomena, I could arrange them in different parts,
which are focused on some specific theoretical problems or specific fields
or phenomena. Although these texts, which were written over a period of
almost two decades, are not organised strictly in chronological order, I still
tried to indicate a trajectory of my own conceptual evolution.
I am just one of many such writers who finds out a fil rouge running
through different texts from different periods. Of course, the above-men-
tioned papers were mostly thoroughly reworked and restructured to some-
what round off what is a relatively fragmentary book. For the texts, which
were published already, bibliographical footnote is added. Finally, a possi-
bility to publish this work as a digital book matches the main book’s con-
tent: mass culture, which would be unthinkable without mass media.
13
