SOME CONSEQUENCES OF TOTAL EQUALITY BETWEEN ORIGINAL

AND COPY IN WORKS OF ART

Ilia Galán
Published as a chapter in the book: VVAA, Terceras jornadas: Imagen, cultura y
tecnología, Madrid, Universidad Carlos III/ Archiviana, 2005. pp.141-149

Translated by Fiona Westbury

p. 141/Since computers have become the new resource for producing art, computing
programmes have themselves become works of art (since they also randomly produce
images or texts and music etc.) but they have also become tools for creating works of art
of any type. The fact that a computing programme may be considered a work of art is
not really because we may consider a machine, a mathematical formula, or a
programme to be art: it may be art because we want to see it this way or because of its
context or the way it is seen aesthetically. Indeed, since the futurists –and even before
them– we have realised that a racing car could be more beautiful that the Winged
Victory of Samothrace.

Rather it is a question of a programme which produces images for an aesthetic and

artistic purpose, making the programmer, as well as the engineers involved in its
making, an artist more than the machine or thing itself. This is really an abstraction
which does not function as art but rather by producing visual or sound images 1. We
may, indeed, soon perhaps have a tactile image which up to now has been represented
visually in three dimensions.

In the case of visual images, digital art reproduces identical works or at least works
which are indistinguishable from each other to the human eye. The structure is identical
in all cases and we do not succeed in distinguishing one from another. Really this is no
particular advance upon photography, except that now reproduction of the identity is
even clearer. In the past, however, even if the negative were the same the process of
developing could produce small differences in light and colour etc. This is no longer the
case with digital works of art. Moreover, their reproducibility is potentially infinite.

It may be paradoxical and a serious, fundamental philosophical problem that the very
identity of something, when reproduced, is lost as such; the plurality of the one has the
effect of diluting its unique nature – if not the unique nature of the original, then at least
the exclusiveness of that way of being. It may be that this is not so different from the
problem of when a parent is more interested in giving birth to another of themselves
than an independent child: a kind of clone in thought and action; a continuation of
themselves and not another human being.

It could be said that such an attempt is impossible to achieve and bound to failure.
Moreover, instead of resolving the problem of identity as continuance over time in the
human case, this becomes perverted as if by attempting to duplicate itself it destroyed
itself psychologically and ethically in both the supposed original and the copy.

1
I use the term image in the classical sense which has come down to us from Plato i.e. the impression of
the senses which leaves a trace in the mind or the soul as a copy of the object, as it were.

1
However, what is really novel is the fact that conventional works of painting, sculpture
and architecture can be reproduced by computer, where there is no distinction between
copy and original. This is already possible in works where there are no biological
elements and therefore where the carbon fourteen test cannot be run. The company
which currently has most developed the technology for this is FACTUM ARTE, located
in Madrid and London, where some key representatives of digital art such as Manuel
Franquelo are working. This artist is also known for his pictorial works approaching
hyperrealism – even though these works actually aim for something quite different and
may encourage dreaming and reflection.

Technology could, in fact, enable numerous sculptures and paintings to be reproduced

identically. The difference between this technique and traditional or current techniques
of forgery would concern not only the fact that these are legal companies who seek to
save valuable works/p.142 –or successfully reproduce them, to then transfer them to
other locations– but also the fact that it would be impossible, should one so wish, to
distinguish between original and copy. The original would be lost in its copies or, if you
like, there would be several originals, since with existing technologies there would be
no human resource to distinguish them from each other i.e. one or several clones would
be produced, just as in the case of the genetic material which makes up living
organisms.

Current speculation on this avails itself of the already classic notion of Benjamin’s
“aura”, interpreted as what makes an object special and gives it a halo or dimension
perceived as special, mysterious or sacred. This was already dealt with at the start of the
20th century in order to establish aesthetic criteria for photography and has not fallen
into disuse. Nevertheless, the “aura” can be understood not so much as something
belonging to the object, although some characteristics must have this, or to its context,
in order to produce this impression but rather as something which belongs to the subject
itself.

From this point of view the important thing would not be the thing itself –its specific
matter– but the sensation it produces di; the ability to produce an aesthetic impression of
a certain scale or depth. In this case everything becomes complicated, and we simply
follow the classic guidelines which go back to Kant. However, here we reinterpret art
from an autonomy which less universal than it is individual and above all distanced
from the world of predominant opinion.

Really, the aura, i.e. what makes a work of art be seen in a special way, may be applied
to any object. And we see this, for instance, with examples of objects of prayer in
religion. Here, however, it is aesthetic perception and its specific statute which is of
interest: what prevents a sculpted angel, for example, from being seen in the same way
in a cathedral (when it is worshipped or is a religious motif), as in a museum
(contemplated for its artistic and aesthetic characteristics), as in a night club where
people turn up to drink alcohol and dance. The contexts also change the way the work
of art is seen. It is the contexts which would create that “aura” in one way or another.

Human beings in different societies appear to seek that something special which belongs
to the “aura”, the advent of the mysterious and profound. In fact, in spite of all the
current resources our modern societies possess for reproducing images of all kinds,
general appreciation of these works has not ceased to esteem the original - or images

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which are invested with “aura” for some or other reason. A photograph exhibited in a
museum or that who is venerated because it is considered sacred, for example. Thus,
live concerts continue to be enjoyed and experienced in a different way from sound
reproductions, no matter how perfect the latter may be. In fact, classical works have
never possessed the almost absolute perfection which characterises recordings today,
where sounds are cut, pasted or touched up until the ideal is achieved. Live
performances, on the contrary, always include mistakes, however good they may be,
except in the case of pieces by one single or very few artists, which have been perfectly
executed on one particular occasion.

But this also happens with rock and other types of music. The sensation of the unique
and experiencing the music in real time, where it is actually being performed, and with
all the nuances of the particular ambience, means that it is the whole person who
perceives it, including the movement, the body in one single place, in a concert hall etc.
In the case of theatre, the difference between theatre filmed for television and live
performance is clear, in this case also because a flat image is not equivalent to three
dimensions but particularly because a person on screen is not seen in the same way as
one sitting in front of you, using all one’s senses, intuitively, instinctively. Dogs do no
react to an image of a painted dog or one on television, even if they see it, the way they
do to a dog they can smell, hear and see in the flesh.

Perhaps something similar happens with humans, without including those who tend to
make more spiritualistic interpretations, where the persons presence would have a
strange way of transmitting itself. This is easily understood when one bears out the
difference between teaching by/p. 143 videoconference and on-site teaching; one does
not respond the same way to something real as to its image, even if there is interaction.
It is as if there were something of a spiritual or personal nature which is transmitted in
direct contact but is lacking when media intervene, just as in the case of theatre when
the audience sees an actor who is really living the scene and transmitting his energy and
impressions to them.

This can also be done in films but not in the same way. The technique helps to produce
these impressions with rhetorical delivery, etc., but we also perceive an excess of action
as something negative, when the actor falsely exaggerates his role, making it unpleasant
or ridiculous. This mysterious effect of art also happens to those who play a music score
coldly but with technical perfection, while another clumsier artist performs it– albeit
with mistakes– but with greater liveliness, transmitting much more of its spirit.
Likewise are the novels of some authors, imperfect but grandiose due to what they
reveal of themselves in their works, such as Walt Whitman’s, those of Hesse or Chopin
in his compositions, and even some paintings by C.D. Friedrich.

If it were simply some technical question, a computer could simply substitute the artist,
automating the score. Our relationships do not seem to take place only in the sphere of
the language of images one can experience. In the case of two dimensional images –the
world which belonged to painting– this has not rid us of the cult of the “aura” which
society has bestowed upon originals, in spite of the huge availability of reproductions
and some very skilful copies which even compete industrially with the original works.
This has happened even in the case of prints but also in serigraphy and the numbering of
sculptures which are understood to be originals; pure convention which would only
consecrate a certain number of these and not others, no matter how much they are

3
indistinguishable in their results, a pure convention also in the case of prints,
lithography, screen printing, etc., which in some cases bear the unique, individual
signature of the author.

Often the key is here, in the uniqueness. But this is not an aesthetic value, as in the case
of rarity. A different matter is that this should affect our aesthetic appreciation and make
us see an object differently that we are told is unique.

Paradoxically greater reproduction of works and greater perfection in that reproduction

has succeeded a new appreciation of the originals, of what is unique. The need to treat
the artistic as a simile of the organic and particularly of what is human is probably
important here, where individuality is key. The copy or clone, in contrast, produces
repulsion, particularly if it is a spiritual copy: one man identical to another, which
strictly speaking never happens. But even in cases where a character and a way of acting
follows or attempts to follow the exact template of another, it incites repulsion and
hilarity in us, or the desire to ridicule it for its non-humanness.

In art, however, although this uniqueness occurs in each creation, even when it tries to
imitate a model, as has happened from the times of Aristotle to Neoclassicism, this does
not happen so much because it is imprinted in a thing but because of the way the
configuration or what others –Aristotle, for example, or Thomas Acquinus– called soul
when this was applied to human beings to distinguish them from matter or what is
informed. If this distinction is a bit artificial and imaginary, it serves to see the thing in a
different form intuitively. The key would not be in the thing itself but in the perception
we have of that thing, not so much in the phenomenon, if we adopt the terminology of
Kant, but rather the imprint it produces on our mind or spirit, in the same way as the
image is a footprint which the mind or spirit leaves in matter.

The fact that the most diverse societies have sought the “auratic” may be interpreted in
psychology as the desire of each to possess what is unique; a way of being unique and
acquiring relevance in the eyes of others. This is also due to the need for ways which
produce the other as other, which distance us from the real world of needs and actions
directed towards a specific purpose and show us the object as an end in itself; self-
referential actions or the object, really, as if this were a subject, and therefore with its
own mystery.

This happens in societies when they develop rites, for example. Whether it be in
processions, religious worship, royal courts or sports competitions, rites simply
differentiate what is common from what is special; they signify or give relevance, they
impregnate an act with myth, through postures, movements, colours etc. Really it is the
“aura” that is being sought; what is special or sacred which belongs to works of art. This
is less due to the work being a special and unique example and more due to what
subjects do when faced with certain works of art or actions, due to the unique, singular
reactions which take place; the impression of beauty or the sublime, perceived as
unique. It is not so much the work of art which would contain the “aura” but the
subjects who, when faced with specific objects, depending on their context and
characteristics, transform them into sacred or special, and see them with “aura” or not.
The subject is the person who would create beauty and what is sacred with his eye and
also with his will. This does not mean there is no need for objects or, that therefore there
is no objectivity./p. 144

4
One visual representation is not the same as another, nor is a sound-based representation
the same as a tactile or spatial one. Were that the case, everything would equally be art
and in the same way, with no distinction, in a magmatic way. In this sense, ideas would
also be art, thus political discourse would be understood as art but so would any idea
expressed. Ideas, when expressed, occur as a representation; they are seen as an image:
visual, tactile or auditory. In this regard they thus become art, since they become
language; feelable forms. This does not mean that all their representations are equally
artistic; a legal text does not attempt at times to be beautiful, although we may find this,
just as are many forms of writing but, as such, they are representation and image. By
turning into image, in some cases, they also become myth, ideas which suggest one or
several meanings in the world. For this reason aesthetics has a lot to do with ideas, with
the word expressed, symbols, since in terms of what is expressed, everything can be
understood and received aesthetically.

However, not everything produces aesthetic impressions equally and current social
values undoubtedly have an influence upon the effectiveness of these impressions.
Thus, today, works which reflect upon what we call human rights, feminist works or
those which are respectful towards plurality are more greatly appreciated, while in other
eras works of art which promoted an authoritarian political system, the absolute power
of the monarch, or which were racist and humiliating to the so-called weaker sex, were
held in higher esteem. Political, ethical and religious concepts affect the aesthetic
appreciation of a work but are not aesthetic elements per se.

Similarly, the idea of original or notions of uniqueness and exclusiveness exert an

influence. When it is discovered that a work is in fact a forgery, for many viewers the
work loses aesthetic interest; they see less in it; they look at it differently and it
therefore loses aesthetic relevance in its subjective impressions. However neither the
uniqueness nor the exclusiveness nor the originality are strictly aesthetic categories, no
matter how much they influence the aesthetic. Also, the perception of a work in a
museum or building in a city, for example, improves when someone has the ability to
explain it and suggest new ways of looking at it, giving it a context beyond the physical;
historical, mythical, political, etc. that surrounds it.

The explanation of a work is not considered to be an act of aesthetic perception in itself.

The fact of a work of art being several centuries old makes us value it more but that
value is not aesthetic – it is historical and should not affect the consideration of the work
itself. Nevertheless, to what extent the world of the arts and its critics are affected by
these assessments can be seen in the case of Ossian: when it was discovered he was not
an ancient bard but someone contemporary his poems ceased to interest many and they
largely disappeared from manuals of literature, where they had up till then been praised
as one of the universal heights of the epic poem by eminent authors in many areas of the
arts. Discovering that such a piece is modern and not ancient does not necessarily have
to be a decisive element in aesthetic assessment, although it is undeniable that knowing
or believing that something is ancient and has survived the test of centuries or even
millennia to reach us has an influence over us when we admire or assess the beauty or
sublime quality of an object.

From this point of view, the aesthetic characteristic of what is picturesque, related to
rarity, would come more from our tiring of too often repeated and overused forms than

5
from a property which is purely aesthetic; this is what happens with newness. However,
where reasons of a commercial nature are concerned, after Marxist and anarchist
criticism one stands back a bit more, when it is also evident that an objet d’art which
has been sold for a fabulous sum of money produces a more attentive eye and helps to
achieve certain aesthetic impressions more so than something which is given as a gift.
But we could also start to consider the element of difficulty, so highly valued by the
masses; creating difficult works or undertaking them in a difficult or ingenious way.
The amount of work and the quality of effort involved in creating something are such
that a sculpture in clay is not looked upon the same way as one of marble, for
example. /p. 145

To sum up, the key to the aesthetic appreciation of a work of art is not to be found in
any of these elements, and when valuing a work it is immaterial whether one is dealing
with a copy or the original itself if no differences are seen between the two.

Some may fear that this might justify forging works of art, through a theory which
justifies forms or spirit but foregoes the individualised subject or what is concrete.
Curiously, Aristotelianism, with all its roots in Plato, would justify copies – something
which Plato himself considered false and pertaining to the low world of the perceptible;
the unworthy dregs of what is ideal. So, precisely to defend the ideal of art one has to
reject its most vulgar material conception, or one’s own clumsy view of the sciences of
physics or chemistry, interesting in their reach but incapable of explaining everything.

From what has been said, copies could be defended against the original but not as much
as 18th century authors did when they defended copying nature on the basis that they
were copying its spirit, the subject itself –its identity– to the point that copies could be
considered clones. This is the case of the copy of La Dama de Elche, where the
Archaeological Museum of Madrid laid down the condition that it should be reproduced
in a different material, even if on the outside it looked the same as the original, so that
experts could tell it apart. The fear of forgery is evident, more so when taking digital
data with the precision achievable today. If created in the same material, one work could
be replaced by the other without anybody but the perpetrator knowing. Moreover, as the
data would be digital, identical reproductions would be potentially infinite.

However, a theory which justifies forgery from the aesthetic point of view does not
invalidate historical interest: that of the uniqueness, exclusiveness, the economic
considerations, etc. which others may attribute to a specific objet d’art. However,
analysed in detail, the majority of theories are conventional and exclusivist in nature,
chosen as especially relevant by the ruling classes, who are the ones who select and
possess these works. One theory of forgery as posed here could therefore be a theory of
cloning objets d’art which would not invalidate their essential values and enable them
to be seen by a lot more members of the public who, in the broadest sense, would gain
the greatest benefit. Unique sculptures or paintings could be reproduced to be seen in
many museums all over the world, instead of being in only one. Thus, transportation
risks and the high costs required by temporary exhibitions would be avoided.

The friezes of the Parthenon could also be returned to the Greeks, either in their
original form or as a copy – it would not really matter. From a materialistic viewpoint,
the age of material is important but here we are faced with the same problem when it
comes to restoring; from the theories of knowledge of German idealism one can

6
however conceive the key not so much in the noumenon but in the impression it makes
on the person who looks at it, it being almost like a type of spiritualization, at the same
time as a pre-eminence of phenomenology; what matters is not things themselves but
what happens within each subject or person.

From a different viewpoint, biology shows us that it is not the actual subject that matters
to identity, since we renew ourselves in terms of cellular composition every few years
yet we are still the same people: it is form that is the key; structure. This happens in the
same way with combinations of atoms which change in works of art as everything,
according to modern physics and chemistry, is in movement, as stated by Heraclytus.
Thus, the renewal of the planks of the ship of Argos which Roland Barthes deals with is
resolved from a formalist view/ p. 146 but remains unsolvable from a purely
materialistic view, adopting Aristotelian classifications for this analysis.

To sum up, historical, exclusivist, economic etc. interests are not relevant, given the
benefit the community may enjoy when it receives a work multiplied in several different
places at once in the style of what could be an apparition of a divine figure. The thing
itself is unimportant. What matters is the effect on oneself and on others, since what
matters are people, not things. The latter are only relevant, as are works of art, in so far
as they have an effect in one way or another on human beings.

One theory of forgery would be a theory of the defence of what is false –a sophism– .
This has always existed amongst good forgers, although with the techniques of today
they would be discovered. But with the phenomenon-based identity between copy and
image, what we discover is the possibility of a theory of cloning or multiplication of
goods, something like the multiplication of loaves and fishes; it is immaterial whether it
is original or copy as long as it feeds us. The miracle would thus be justified by itself, or
better, by its effects on those who contemplate it, such is the case of digital
representation. On the other hand, forgery deceives, declaring itself to be the original,
while cloning can be forgery or clear reduplication which is declared as such.

However, something which appears to be acceptable and normal in music is not so in

the plastic arts. This happens both in musical scores and records, i.e. sporadic, indefinite
reproduction of a number of specific sounds. Equally, this occurs in literature, where it
is not so much the manuscript of the author that matters but the work itself, it being
absolutely of secondary importance whether one binding or another, or one type of
printing or another is used for the work one is about to read, even if the art of presenting
it would help its interpretation or might also justify it; editorial art, therefore. In the case
of architecture, although the key are the plans or the idea, nevertheless, when architects
die their projects are not normally seen through to their conclusion by others. The same
thing has happened to the work of many great architects of the past, regardless of the
fact that the architect does not actually build the building with his own hands. The fact
is that the artist is the artist more due to his expressible “idea” than to the specific
expression of that “idea”.

Given so much institutional, political, economic and traditionalist reticence, which

theories could be the most interesting ones for our theories here? On the one hand there
is Kant’s gnoseology, i.e. German idealism itself, in the sense that we have already
shown. On the other hand is the anarchy applied to aesthetics and, in particular, to art,
where what is important is the individual and his freedom, much more than the interests

7
controlled by institutions or pressure groups. In both cases the key is the subject itself.
Finally, there is the controversy which has arisen due to Appropriationism and all that
this meant at the time. All this is conveniently harmonised, polished and revised with
today’s ideas on this, in order to interpret something which has never happened before
the way it does today.

Appropriationism2 arose in the US at the start of the 80s, also as a controversy linked to
the media, whose main focus is usually on the California Institute of the Arts in Los
Angeles, where several of its artists were trained. Douglas Crimp’s idea, by which
behind an image another image can always be found, is nothing novel really, since it is
to be found in the common saying that a picture is worth more than a thousand words.
The equation concludes with the fact that one image may be equivalent to many images.
For Crimp it was not the origin of the image that was so important but rather its
significant structure, i.e. the image in ourselves and the meaning we give to it 3. If the
most important thing in his view was there, it would be reasonable to go back and
present already existing images, simulate them, or take them up again and give them a
different meaning. Thus, the 1977 exhibition, Pictures, in New York came about
after/p. 147 inviting several artists to work with the images of others, appropriating
them but giving them a different meaning with that act.

Here it was indicated that the term “picture” alludes both to the image itself and the
mental process; to imagining. This latter state is where the key lay. Thus, Jack Goldstein
represented what was already present. Also induced by Crimp, several people conceived
photography as the only alternative to painting in post-modernity, a criterion which later
was not so widely shared due to its exclusivist nature. There were no convincing
arguments to negate the action of painting, for the same reason that photography was
given the right to re-photograph what was already presented.

However, for some, such as Thomas Lawson, real life is nothing more than the life we
see reflected in films and images and he thus concluded that the camera is our god 4, to
then avail himself of several photographic motifs and with that “dialectical
reduplication”, question their meanings. Along the same lines is the work of Craig
Owens, entitled The Allegorical Impulse. Toward a Theory of Postmodernism. In effect,
the partial copying of a photo, a touched-up copy, or simply a copy re-photographed
and placed in a different location may change its meaning in the same way as any
context may change the text.

Appropriation spread later to painting, sometimes closely approaching photography or

taking motifs from cinema, photograms etc. This is the case of Troy Brauntuch when he
fragmented images of Hitler and made him unrecognisable, creating a new work with
new meaning from already existing images. Literature also comes from words which
have already been used many times, well-known arguments, etc.

When Richard Prince took photographs of photographs in an attempt to erase the

difference between art and reality, really he was potentiating art again with a gesture,
the desire to reinterpret. Robert Longo achieved the same thing with his images taken
2
I continue sketchily with this, although this is given critical commentary in the script by Ana María
Guasch in "El arte último del s. XX", Madrid, Alianza, 200, pp. 341-355 y 379-402.
3
CRIMP, Douglas, "Pictures", Pictures, New York, Artist´s Space, 1977. Republished with additions in
the magazine October, 8, summer 1979, pp. 75-88.
4
LAWSON, Thomas, "Last Exit Painting", Artforum, October 1981, pp. 40-47.

8
from films or television, isolating them and altering them by changing their context.
Sherrie Levine, on the other hand, trying to demystify the concept of originality by
refusing to invent and availing herself of the work of other recognised photographers
she had photographed was, in fact, only following the classic line within art, since the
search for originality as a key or pre-eminent element is something fundamentally
modern, as we know. Along the same lines were the artisan and colour reproductions of
works by other artists, as if they were forgeries but with a different meaning. Not very
different is the work of Louse Lawler and others, aiming to reflect upon new contexts.

However, if Guasch5 believes here that “this is not a question of substituting reality with
its representation but of remaking it, this way they sought the principle of simulation as
an alternative to the work of art in its traditional sense, showing the influence of French
poststructuralist thought around simulacra and hyperreality (Barthes, Foucault, Lyotard
and Baudrillard)" what is developed in FACTUM ARTE and what has led to this
analysis has quite a different purpose.

It might be advisable to follow the aim of the appropriationists, availing ourselves of

their arguments. But this also serves to potentiate traditional art through its clones, by
multiplying the exhibition of its phenomenic forms. In other words, strangely, this
would save traditional art the same way as the Altamira Caves, or some Egyptian tomb,
were reproduced in order to avoid their deterioration from a deluge of tourists. The
interpretations of Baudrillard, when he considers that society is controlled by fashion
and advertising and that objects are not valued for anything other than their appearance,
conclude that we live in a culture of simulacra where images tend to seduce. However,
applied here, it does not have that meaning, since Baudrillard considers that it is a
simulacrum which falsifies reality or that reality has been lost by the simulacrum of a
vast proliferation of images.

In contrast, from what we have said here, it will not be so much a case of a simulacrum
as the natural way of becoming acquainted with images. Quite a different issue is the
interpretation we might give to the images and multiplying realities, i.e. the objets d’art
to make them present in several different places since, as regards being mere things –as
opposed to people–/p. 148 their essence is above all their appearance, following
Nietzsche here. The world of the phenomenon, what we feel and perceive, would not be
the false world, like the one conceived by the followers of Plato and the rationalists but
rather the real world, as the experimental sciences do to develop their theories.

Paradoxically, digital cloning of works of art could be interpreted through

Appropriationism but also according to traditional theories. It could be thought that one
really gets to the essence of art, since its appearance in us, or better, the impression its
appearance causes is reality and there is no other in humans which is of any interest. In
that sense it would not necessarily be a simulacrum but a reality, a plural realisation of
singleness.

When J. Koons or H. Steinbach appropriated objects of mass consumption from any

shop and put them on shelves in an exhibition hall, they did nothing very different from
Duchamp with his Readymade, however this is not the subject of our analysis. Nor is it
a question of seeking, as in the title by Gregory Battcock, "The Superiority of the
False", as this would be a question of showing that the copies are truths, as the original
5
GUASCH, Ana Maria, Op. Cit.

9
is also true, or prints by Dürer are equally true. It is irrelevant whether they were
produced by one person or another, by the printer or Dürer himself; by the sculptor or
the company who scans the work, since the spirit of the author is in the form, the idea of
the subject we could say, configured significantly in a specific way. Once reproduced,
however, it would be the same work.

When they say that Hank Herron –whether he existed or not– made mechanical and
exact copies of works by Frank Stella, it was to give him a different spirit, saying they
were his, while what we are talking about here is continuing with the spirit of the author
being reproduced, reproducing it the same way as the living people in each of his
biological creations, as regards life itself. Battcock said that this was superior to what
was copied when it was done, as it transcended this spirit and ignored the concept of
what is authentic. But this could be said about the idea, not the work, since all copies are
inferior to the original in their production, even in digital reproduction, no matter how
imperceptible to the human eye, or to currently available measuring devices.

Simulation for the appropriationists was a philosophical distancing of art and

consumption, like the art market which ended up swallowing them up, as in the case of
the representatives of conceptual art or, beyond this, the anti-academic Dadaists, who
ended up in museums and academies. In the same way, the use of objects from daily life
placed in museums (such as Peter Halley’s vacuum cleaners or J. Koons’ objects) in
order to be understood by the masses ( i.e. images of the pink panther, toy trains, balls,
soft toys, etc.) provoked rejection on the part of a significant proportion of the public
who did not understand why such basic objects were given that pre-eminence in an
exhibition room or gallery. Their common sense did not extend to the theories which
justified the presence of these objects but to the influence of the images and the feelings
and ideas they produced. The basic answer is that perhaps there are more interesting
objects to put there which would provoke more interesting reactions.

If the appropriationists placed daily objects in museums, it might now be suitable to put
exclusive works from museums on the street, since with a certain number of copies, by
bringing down the prices, thousands of people could have the Winged Victory of
Samothrace in their back garden. Curiously, the anti-historicist argument would bring
back history, multiplying it, precisely undermining the historical value and giving
consistency to the aesthetic.

Thus it can be seen that although the key is the phenomenon, the virtual world does not
replace reality, rather it simplifies or caricatures it. Basically, the controversy between
the virtual world and the real world can be seen as false, since real is what we perceive
and believe as such, i.e. as founding, as producer of our feelings, beyond what Berkeley
said./ p. 149

In this sense there could be a renewal of aesthetic categories, in particular as regards the
idea of what is or could be art, since it would not be so much question of the history of
art, i.e. the positions that some works and privileged authors have achieved in the many
different assessments over time for different reasons. Art would consist more of the
image seen in a specific subject, i.e. the image which affects it aesthetically. That would
be the essential element of art, much more than the image which society has of it,
considering a work as an object in itself, a thing. Art would be more within the viewer
than in the thing itself, more in self than in object. This, however, does not cancel out

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the object, the noumenon. The criteria for giving “aura” to some works rather than
others would remain in the subject, in so far as it may free itself from prevailing
conventional economic or political criteria, for example. Fundamentally, freedom would
be regained when it comes to assessing works of art, thanks to the pre-eminence of
aesthetic appreciation.

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