Page 33 - Critical Theories of Mass Media

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18 Then
the artist. In Benjamin’s Essay we encounter the radical (and we
suggest essentially critical) notion that a particular medium has a
specific grammar, a way of structuring meaning and this occurs
irrespective of the artist’s intentions. Perhaps the best way to express
this conceptualization of the non-neutral nature of new media
technologies can be found in the Essay itself when Benjamin claims
that, instead of arguing whether photography is an art form or not,
the real question to be asked is the extent to which art itself has
been fundamentally transformed: ‘Earlier much futile thought had
been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The
primary question – whether the very invention of photography had
not transformed the entire nature of art – was not raised’ (Section
VII). Thus, it is not physical matter that must serve art, but art that
must be transformed in keeping with the new nature of
im/materiality in an age of industrial (re)production . As Valéry
2
points out in the epigraph to the Essay, ‘neither matter nor space
nor time has been what it was from time immemorial’. This is how
Benjamin sees mass-media technology – as a fundamental, revolu-
tionary force. He seeks to develop a Marxist interpretation with
which to make best use of such tradition-shattering power. His
analysis is therefore much more than merely a matter of aesthetic
theory – it relates directly to political action.
His analysis is political because, writing at the time of German
fascism, he opposes the way in which reactionary social forces misuse
and subvert the traditional artistic notions of creativity, individual
genius and the timeless mystery of the artwork. According to
Benjamin, the drive by fascism to uphold these traditional concepts
occurs in the face of technological developments that should actually
undermine that tradition. By contrast, he sought to establish princi-
ples in the Essay that, fully sensitive to the social implications of
these technological developments, could lead to a politics of eman-
cipation. This new strategy is to be found within the account
Benjamin provides of the historical formation and function of the
work of art. In particular, the radical political potential to be found
in his key notion that traditional aura is evacuated by the media to
be replaced by a new, more empowering, relationship of the masses
to an unprecedentedly mediated reality. In its most general defini-
tion, aura is understood in terms of singularity, uniqueness – all that
is that is irreproducible:

What is aura, actually? A strange weave of space and time: the
unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how
close the object might be. While resting on a summer’s noon,
to trace a range of mountains on the horizon, or a branch that
throws its shadow on the observer, until the moment or hour

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