Page 41 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 41
changing the mind
perception that Benjamin discovered using his theoretical intuition. 3 The
central aspect of this transformed perception of reality is the distracted ob-
serving as opposed to concentrated perception.
The distracted person, too, can form habits. More, the ability to
master certain tasks in a state of distraction proves that their solu-
tion has become a matter of habit. Distraction as provided by art
presents a covert control of the extent to which new tasks have be-
come soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are
tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and
most important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today
it does so in the film (Benjamin, 1969: p. 240).
What could be clearly elaborated from Benjamin‘s “perception of per-
ception” is a fundamentally rearranged constitutive position of any artis-
tic praxis and the big impact of this praxis on the praxis of the social repro-
duction. Undoubtedly, from Benjamin’s time these rearrangements only
intensified. The age of the increasing role of technology brought about very
complex changes of the functioning of minds on a massive scale. Simulta-
neously entering the mass perception, new forms of aesthetic praxis over-
turned the whole functioning of the arts in the social imaginary. Of course,
it is possible to elaborate extensively on the structure of these interdepend-
ent practices, and on their complex transformations especially through the
period of the second half of the 20th Century. Such elaborations exist in var-
ious fields, such as film and media studies, cultural studies and so on. How-
ever, I only want to make the point that Benjamin himself marked a mo-
ment, in which the big cumulative restructuring of society and the changes
in people’s minds became apparent, and he could more or less guess about
the “prognostic value” of his discovery:
Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the mass-
es toward art. The reactionary attitude towards a Picasso painting
changes into the progressive reaction towards a Chaplin movie. The
progressive reaction is characterized by the direct, intimate fusion
3 One of the simple, but very telling examples is the adaptation of the human eye,
which happened when the speed of film running in front of the projecting light was
accelerated from 16 to 24 frames per second due to certain technical reasons, when
sound was introduced in the cinema. Spectators, who got used to 24 frames per sec-
ond, could not follow 16 frames per second because their eyes could see the dark
transitions between frames.
39
perception that Benjamin discovered using his theoretical intuition. 3 The
central aspect of this transformed perception of reality is the distracted ob-
serving as opposed to concentrated perception.
The distracted person, too, can form habits. More, the ability to
master certain tasks in a state of distraction proves that their solu-
tion has become a matter of habit. Distraction as provided by art
presents a covert control of the extent to which new tasks have be-
come soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are
tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and
most important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today
it does so in the film (Benjamin, 1969: p. 240).
What could be clearly elaborated from Benjamin‘s “perception of per-
ception” is a fundamentally rearranged constitutive position of any artis-
tic praxis and the big impact of this praxis on the praxis of the social repro-
duction. Undoubtedly, from Benjamin’s time these rearrangements only
intensified. The age of the increasing role of technology brought about very
complex changes of the functioning of minds on a massive scale. Simulta-
neously entering the mass perception, new forms of aesthetic praxis over-
turned the whole functioning of the arts in the social imaginary. Of course,
it is possible to elaborate extensively on the structure of these interdepend-
ent practices, and on their complex transformations especially through the
period of the second half of the 20th Century. Such elaborations exist in var-
ious fields, such as film and media studies, cultural studies and so on. How-
ever, I only want to make the point that Benjamin himself marked a mo-
ment, in which the big cumulative restructuring of society and the changes
in people’s minds became apparent, and he could more or less guess about
the “prognostic value” of his discovery:
Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the mass-
es toward art. The reactionary attitude towards a Picasso painting
changes into the progressive reaction towards a Chaplin movie. The
progressive reaction is characterized by the direct, intimate fusion
3 One of the simple, but very telling examples is the adaptation of the human eye,
which happened when the speed of film running in front of the projecting light was
accelerated from 16 to 24 frames per second due to certain technical reasons, when
sound was introduced in the cinema. Spectators, who got used to 24 frames per sec-
ond, could not follow 16 frames per second because their eyes could see the dark
transitions between frames.
39
