Page 28 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 28
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
means a similarity as well. Nevertheless, when we talk about such practical
general aspects concerning rather unproblematic and simple aspects of the
question of the form, we should not forget Walter Benjamin and his inter-
vention in the field of the aesthetic discourse.
Change in the Mode of Participation
“The mass is a matrix from which all traditional behaviour toward works
of art issues today in a new form. Quantity has been transmuted into quali-
ty. The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the
mode of participation. The fact that the new mode of participation first ap-
peared in a disreputable form must not confuse the spectator”. (Benjamin,
1969: p. 239). Now our simple examples do not look so simple. This much
known text by Benjamin, no doubt quite apprehensible within the frame-
work of its argumentation, brings a certain aspect, concerning a border be-
tween objects deemed aesthetic and objects we usually just call “things”.
If, as Benjamin said, the very notion of art is thoroughly changed by the
process of the mechanical reproduction, then we should presume that the
world, being mirrored, expressed and articulated in such art, was some-
way changed. Maybe we can risk an assumption that this meaning is un-
derstood with Benjamin’s insight. Before his discourse unfolds, Benjamin
makes it clear that his starting point was Marx‘s theory containing “prog-
nostic value” concerning the abolition of capitalism. Although Benjamin
himself held this starting point as a theoretical bases of his analysis of the
changes of the cultural bias, brought by the development of the capitalist
mode of production, it has been soon identified by his distinguished read-
er – namely Adorno – as the “undialectical side” of his approach. As it is
precisely reported in Richard Wollin‘s book on Benjamin, Adorno’s criti-
cism has been aimed at all the weakest points in Benjamin’s text,2 which
is not to say that Adorno grasped the full meaning of the article which
could be comprehended only a few decades later. Alternatively, in anoth-
er words, Adorno was most probably concerned with the aesthetic prob-
lems, on which he shared a common interest with Benjamin. Moreover,
2 “Dialectical though your essay may be” – writes Adorno to Benjamin – “it is not so in
the case of the autonomous work of art itself; it disregards an elementary experience
which becomes more evident to me every day in my own musical experience
– that precisely the uttermost consistency in the pursuit of the technical laws of
autonomous art changes this art and instead of rendering it taboo or fetish, brings
it close to the state of freedom, of something that can be consciously produced and
made” Cf. cit., Wollin (1982: p. 191).
26
means a similarity as well. Nevertheless, when we talk about such practical
general aspects concerning rather unproblematic and simple aspects of the
question of the form, we should not forget Walter Benjamin and his inter-
vention in the field of the aesthetic discourse.
Change in the Mode of Participation
“The mass is a matrix from which all traditional behaviour toward works
of art issues today in a new form. Quantity has been transmuted into quali-
ty. The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the
mode of participation. The fact that the new mode of participation first ap-
peared in a disreputable form must not confuse the spectator”. (Benjamin,
1969: p. 239). Now our simple examples do not look so simple. This much
known text by Benjamin, no doubt quite apprehensible within the frame-
work of its argumentation, brings a certain aspect, concerning a border be-
tween objects deemed aesthetic and objects we usually just call “things”.
If, as Benjamin said, the very notion of art is thoroughly changed by the
process of the mechanical reproduction, then we should presume that the
world, being mirrored, expressed and articulated in such art, was some-
way changed. Maybe we can risk an assumption that this meaning is un-
derstood with Benjamin’s insight. Before his discourse unfolds, Benjamin
makes it clear that his starting point was Marx‘s theory containing “prog-
nostic value” concerning the abolition of capitalism. Although Benjamin
himself held this starting point as a theoretical bases of his analysis of the
changes of the cultural bias, brought by the development of the capitalist
mode of production, it has been soon identified by his distinguished read-
er – namely Adorno – as the “undialectical side” of his approach. As it is
precisely reported in Richard Wollin‘s book on Benjamin, Adorno’s criti-
cism has been aimed at all the weakest points in Benjamin’s text,2 which
is not to say that Adorno grasped the full meaning of the article which
could be comprehended only a few decades later. Alternatively, in anoth-
er words, Adorno was most probably concerned with the aesthetic prob-
lems, on which he shared a common interest with Benjamin. Moreover,
2 “Dialectical though your essay may be” – writes Adorno to Benjamin – “it is not so in
the case of the autonomous work of art itself; it disregards an elementary experience
which becomes more evident to me every day in my own musical experience
– that precisely the uttermost consistency in the pursuit of the technical laws of
autonomous art changes this art and instead of rendering it taboo or fetish, brings
it close to the state of freedom, of something that can be consciously produced and
made” Cf. cit., Wollin (1982: p. 191).
26
