Page 44 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 44
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
ical apprehensions, is also characterised by a differentiating play that sets
apart not just any “big Subjects” but little “subjectivities” with, if I may say
so, a low rate of hegemonic impact. No matter how much passion, organi-
zation and genius, is invested into the creation of an event, the hegemonic
effect can be measured one way or another by the market response.
Maybe this was a basic “discovery” of the 1960s and 19070s, when
some artists in different areas of aesthetic praxis, reacted to such reality,
bearing in mind that the result of their reaction to a particular work of art
would be judged by the market as well. Andy Warhol “described” the real-
ity of the modern industrial world by eclectic compositions, which main-
ly exposed the process of massive reproduction. In his images of multiplied
icons of the star system (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley etc.), he persuasive-
ly demonstrated that in such a world a category of uniqueness is a matter of
a process of multiplication of certain icons. Taking into account that he es-
tablished a level of comparison between Campbell Soup and movie icons,
Warhol preceded the post-modern usage of the category of reification. Mi-
chelangelo Antonioni, whose movies were seen as a bit enigmatic and her-
metic at the time that they were first shown, contributed to his specific gaze
upon urban subjectivity and especially upon the reality, which such subjec-
tivity unintentionally produced. After the film Blow up (1966), based on the
Julio Cortázar’s story, Antonioni actually became very transparent since he
identified perceived reality as the very same one as that, which is produced
– in the given case – by the machinery of representation in both possible
senses (as a camera and as a social field of signification). Besides, it seems
that quite a large audience accepted Antonioni’s cinema, at least in Europe.
At the same time, the 1960s brought about a massive participation of the
urban youth in the communication of multiple meanings. The main mo-
tive of the fashion designer Mary Quant was “… to extend the meaning of
fashion beyond the classical couture designs of the affluent” (Bernard, 1978:
p. 8). “Ordinary people” expressed their answers to the question about their
identity with their own bodies by “animating” creations of Mary Quant
and other designers from Carnaby Street. Since then the fashion designers
became comparable to what philosophers have ceased to be: a kind of ora-
cle of the reality of the society, which is defined by sociologist like Giddens
and Bourdieu as the “reflexive society”. Listen carefully to what people like
Karl Lagerfeld or Viviane Westwood are saying, and how their descriptions
of sewing dresses and of what their designs represent correspond to attrib-
utes of the constitutively “unstable” reality.
42
ical apprehensions, is also characterised by a differentiating play that sets
apart not just any “big Subjects” but little “subjectivities” with, if I may say
so, a low rate of hegemonic impact. No matter how much passion, organi-
zation and genius, is invested into the creation of an event, the hegemonic
effect can be measured one way or another by the market response.
Maybe this was a basic “discovery” of the 1960s and 19070s, when
some artists in different areas of aesthetic praxis, reacted to such reality,
bearing in mind that the result of their reaction to a particular work of art
would be judged by the market as well. Andy Warhol “described” the real-
ity of the modern industrial world by eclectic compositions, which main-
ly exposed the process of massive reproduction. In his images of multiplied
icons of the star system (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley etc.), he persuasive-
ly demonstrated that in such a world a category of uniqueness is a matter of
a process of multiplication of certain icons. Taking into account that he es-
tablished a level of comparison between Campbell Soup and movie icons,
Warhol preceded the post-modern usage of the category of reification. Mi-
chelangelo Antonioni, whose movies were seen as a bit enigmatic and her-
metic at the time that they were first shown, contributed to his specific gaze
upon urban subjectivity and especially upon the reality, which such subjec-
tivity unintentionally produced. After the film Blow up (1966), based on the
Julio Cortázar’s story, Antonioni actually became very transparent since he
identified perceived reality as the very same one as that, which is produced
– in the given case – by the machinery of representation in both possible
senses (as a camera and as a social field of signification). Besides, it seems
that quite a large audience accepted Antonioni’s cinema, at least in Europe.
At the same time, the 1960s brought about a massive participation of the
urban youth in the communication of multiple meanings. The main mo-
tive of the fashion designer Mary Quant was “… to extend the meaning of
fashion beyond the classical couture designs of the affluent” (Bernard, 1978:
p. 8). “Ordinary people” expressed their answers to the question about their
identity with their own bodies by “animating” creations of Mary Quant
and other designers from Carnaby Street. Since then the fashion designers
became comparable to what philosophers have ceased to be: a kind of ora-
cle of the reality of the society, which is defined by sociologist like Giddens
and Bourdieu as the “reflexive society”. Listen carefully to what people like
Karl Lagerfeld or Viviane Westwood are saying, and how their descriptions
of sewing dresses and of what their designs represent correspond to attrib-
utes of the constitutively “unstable” reality.
42
