Page 32 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 32
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
does not rule out the point, which is, that the form “formed” a separate re-
ality of the works of art. With a gradual transformation of the original (and
even revolutionary in their age) aesthetic theories into the ideology of art,
ideology of an “elite” public, the form “as such” became an object of obses-
sion on both sides: the public and the artists. However, when this point was
reached, it was already obvious that all around emerged all sorts of “enter-
tainment,” and that “unworthy” forms of decoration invaded the streets in
the metropolitan areas.
Orchid in the Land of Technology
Benjamin, using the terms of political economy in defining the superstruc-
ture, saw the decisive transformation, crucial in attaining a new form of so-
ciety. It is not as important as it may seem that he understood this move-
ment as a way to communism, which had been a lively idea of emancipation
at the time. His conceptualization of the consequences of the perceived
properties of what had been going on is much more significant. “The equip-
ment-free aspect of reality here has become the height of artifice; the sight
of immediate reality has become an orchid in the land of technology” (Ben-
jamin, 1969: p. 233). The results of such an assumption may be taken as so-
ciological, but no less, they are significant for the idea of the subjectivity
as well. What we may say today is that Benjamin was on the verge of dis-
covering not only the disappearance of the aura, but the disappearance of
the Subject itself, too. Again, in Benjamin’s “sociological” observation the
change concerns the art as much as the masses:
To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a
perception whose ‘sense of the universal equality of things’ has in-
creased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique ob-
ject by means of reproduction. This is nowadays noticeable in the
increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the
masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope,
as much for thinking as for perception (Ibid.: p. 223).
What is seen here from the side of object is at the same time reflect-
ed by a change in the structure of subjectivity, whose reality must become
split in a way as a contradiction of form against form (replacing the old con-
tradiction between the form and the content). The instrument representing
the new structure of reality – the cinematographic camera – functions on
the level of a new “science,” which ruins the idea of the Subject, born to be
30
does not rule out the point, which is, that the form “formed” a separate re-
ality of the works of art. With a gradual transformation of the original (and
even revolutionary in their age) aesthetic theories into the ideology of art,
ideology of an “elite” public, the form “as such” became an object of obses-
sion on both sides: the public and the artists. However, when this point was
reached, it was already obvious that all around emerged all sorts of “enter-
tainment,” and that “unworthy” forms of decoration invaded the streets in
the metropolitan areas.
Orchid in the Land of Technology
Benjamin, using the terms of political economy in defining the superstruc-
ture, saw the decisive transformation, crucial in attaining a new form of so-
ciety. It is not as important as it may seem that he understood this move-
ment as a way to communism, which had been a lively idea of emancipation
at the time. His conceptualization of the consequences of the perceived
properties of what had been going on is much more significant. “The equip-
ment-free aspect of reality here has become the height of artifice; the sight
of immediate reality has become an orchid in the land of technology” (Ben-
jamin, 1969: p. 233). The results of such an assumption may be taken as so-
ciological, but no less, they are significant for the idea of the subjectivity
as well. What we may say today is that Benjamin was on the verge of dis-
covering not only the disappearance of the aura, but the disappearance of
the Subject itself, too. Again, in Benjamin’s “sociological” observation the
change concerns the art as much as the masses:
To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a
perception whose ‘sense of the universal equality of things’ has in-
creased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique ob-
ject by means of reproduction. This is nowadays noticeable in the
increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the
masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope,
as much for thinking as for perception (Ibid.: p. 223).
What is seen here from the side of object is at the same time reflect-
ed by a change in the structure of subjectivity, whose reality must become
split in a way as a contradiction of form against form (replacing the old con-
tradiction between the form and the content). The instrument representing
the new structure of reality – the cinematographic camera – functions on
the level of a new “science,” which ruins the idea of the Subject, born to be
30
