Page 22 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 22
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
elaboration in the essay) is visible in Benjamin’s positioning of culture as
an explanatory “representational” complex. The culture, which is marked
by “mechanical reproduction”, represents a society in which the scheme of
dependence of the superstructure on the substructure loses its explanato-
ry power – thus the scheme becomes blurred and implicitly obsolete with-
in the subtext of Benjamin’s essay. Benjamin did not assume transparent
totality of mass culture; he rather determined its particular elements and
made an effort to analyse the means of production and distribution, which
he selected to demonstrate the emancipatory effect of mass culture on its
participants. He makes mass culture legible by imbuing the concept with
the notion of the “mass as a matrix” (Benjamin, 1969: p. 239).
If, as Benjamin had written, the very notion of art becomes thorough-
ly changed by the process of mechanical reproduction, then we should pre-
sume that the world, being mirrored, expressed, articulated... in such an
art, has somehow been transmuted. Although the Berger and Luckman‘s
notion of “the social construction of reality” (Berger, Luckman,1991) had
yet had to be conceived, we can take Benjamin’s analysis as basically con-
taining the same meaning. After all, we are talking about a relatively short
piece of writing, an insightful glimpse of a genius, and yet, we are talk-
ing about quite a schematic hypothesis, which is truly rather open in its
meaning. Benjamin has not stated a very clear idea on how the change in
the modes of production of art has really affected “the world” of economy,
law and politics; his intention seems to be more so the other way around.
True, he does not omit the question and he alludes to some clues concern-
ing changes in perception, which is indicated by the “distracted” manner
in which mass audiences absorb art.
What Benjamin valued as a potential “emancipatory effect” of the
mass culture, meant something quite opposite for Adorno (and Horkheim-
er): “The cult of celebrities has built-in social mechanisms to level down
everyone who stands out in any way” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1972: p.
236). As much as Adorno and Horkheimer especially at the time of The Di-
alectic of Enlightenment still adhered to Marxist ideas, they, in a final anal-
ysis, actually nevertheless advocated a position of “bourgeois subjectivity”.
Their ideal of an individual in a sense corresponded to a “highbrow” rep-
resentation of a sensitive art lover who gets absorbed by the work of art.
Certainly, it can be proven that the essay The work of art... occupies a
special place within the context of fragmented entirety of Benjamin‘s work.
As much as the essay obviously is not in accordance with Adorno’s views,
20
elaboration in the essay) is visible in Benjamin’s positioning of culture as
an explanatory “representational” complex. The culture, which is marked
by “mechanical reproduction”, represents a society in which the scheme of
dependence of the superstructure on the substructure loses its explanato-
ry power – thus the scheme becomes blurred and implicitly obsolete with-
in the subtext of Benjamin’s essay. Benjamin did not assume transparent
totality of mass culture; he rather determined its particular elements and
made an effort to analyse the means of production and distribution, which
he selected to demonstrate the emancipatory effect of mass culture on its
participants. He makes mass culture legible by imbuing the concept with
the notion of the “mass as a matrix” (Benjamin, 1969: p. 239).
If, as Benjamin had written, the very notion of art becomes thorough-
ly changed by the process of mechanical reproduction, then we should pre-
sume that the world, being mirrored, expressed, articulated... in such an
art, has somehow been transmuted. Although the Berger and Luckman‘s
notion of “the social construction of reality” (Berger, Luckman,1991) had
yet had to be conceived, we can take Benjamin’s analysis as basically con-
taining the same meaning. After all, we are talking about a relatively short
piece of writing, an insightful glimpse of a genius, and yet, we are talk-
ing about quite a schematic hypothesis, which is truly rather open in its
meaning. Benjamin has not stated a very clear idea on how the change in
the modes of production of art has really affected “the world” of economy,
law and politics; his intention seems to be more so the other way around.
True, he does not omit the question and he alludes to some clues concern-
ing changes in perception, which is indicated by the “distracted” manner
in which mass audiences absorb art.
What Benjamin valued as a potential “emancipatory effect” of the
mass culture, meant something quite opposite for Adorno (and Horkheim-
er): “The cult of celebrities has built-in social mechanisms to level down
everyone who stands out in any way” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1972: p.
236). As much as Adorno and Horkheimer especially at the time of The Di-
alectic of Enlightenment still adhered to Marxist ideas, they, in a final anal-
ysis, actually nevertheless advocated a position of “bourgeois subjectivity”.
Their ideal of an individual in a sense corresponded to a “highbrow” rep-
resentation of a sensitive art lover who gets absorbed by the work of art.
Certainly, it can be proven that the essay The work of art... occupies a
special place within the context of fragmented entirety of Benjamin‘s work.
As much as the essay obviously is not in accordance with Adorno’s views,
20
