NAME - PURVASHA SHARAN

SUBMITTED TO - PROFESSOR ANUP BENIWAL

ROLL NO. - 70521610923
PAPER - CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM
DATE OF SUBMISSION - 8.05.24
Ques: Read The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

through the lens of Baudrillard's The Precession of Simulacra.

WORK OF ART BEING PRECEDED BY SIMULACRA IN THE AGE OF

MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION

Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” helps

in developing an insightful interpretation of technology's role in reproduction and the role it

plays in forming aesthetic experience. Benjamin reflects on the decline of aesthetic experience

due to some effects of photography and film. He argues that the mechanical processes of

reproduction deprive the artwork of its ‘aura’. The essay deals with the changes brought about by

certain transcription techniques, especially in photography and cinema , in the field of art and the

political sphere, and the new status that art has gained in the capitalist world and the

industrialized world during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Art is a diverse range of activity that is performed by humans and the end result of it or the

end product involves a creative and imaginative talent generally expressive of technical

proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. The interpretation of what art is has

varied greatly throughout history and across different cultures. According to the Western

tradition, “the three classical branches of visual art are painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Theater, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, music, film and other media such

as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the art”. Until the 17th century, art
was referred to as any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. But in

the modern usage after the 17th century, the aesthetic considerations are of paramount value.

A work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts were always possible to be

imitated by men. Replicas were made. Mechanical reproduction of a work of art represents

something new. Benjamin depicts a history of art reproduction techniques like founding,

stamping, print, engraving, etching, woodcut, etc. In the 19th century lithography made its

appearance and was surpassed by photography gradually. He argues that the technical

reproduction with the appearance of photography is a new stage in quantitative and qualitative

terms, until it is not just duplication but becomes art itself.

Art can be experienced and consumed through its aura which is a distinctive atmosphere or

a quality that's associated with something. Depending on the medium and the preferences of an

individual, one can experience the aura of art by visiting galleries, museums, and art fairs,

attending live performances such as concerts or theater productions, and engaging with digital or

virtual art online. Consumption of the art can involve purchasing artwork, listening to music,

reading literature, or simply contemplating and reflecting on the meaning and impact of the art.

The contemporary world is facing a decay of the aura. Mechanical reproduction destroys the

aura as it enables multiple copies to be created and hence striping the artwork of its uniqueness.

The aura which is like a hallmark of a work of art is losing its grip because of the desire of the

contemporary masses to bring things closer spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their

inclination towards overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction.
And this urge grows eventually, to get hold of an object at a very close range by way of its

likeness, by its reproduction. The loss of the aura deals with the changing perception of time and

space and the way we experience reality, destroying the privileged status of "source" versus

"copy", challenging concepts such as "tradition" and "authenticity". Mechanical reproduction

emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. The work of art reproduced

becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. Authenticity ceases to be applicable to

artistic production and the total function of art is reversed.

Photography was a revolutionary means of reproduction that created a rift in the ritual status

of the authentic work of art. Here the display value outweighed the ritual value, which helped in

understanding the political role of the work of art. Films and photography have led to the actor,

the instrumentation taking the audience's position, so that for the first time the person acts

detached from his aura. There is a growing alienation of Man from his work that leads to art

increasingly deviating from the realm of the "illusion of the beautiful.” The film industry of the

West that's capitalistic prevents this revolutionary application by cultivating the cult of

personality, which re-establishes the aura as a commodity. “The illusory nature of the film is a

second-rate nature: it is the fruit of cutting and reassembling (the montage). Compared to the

painter, whose action on reality is distant and magical, the camera operator penetrates into reality

and cuts sections out of it”.

Naturalism as a genre attempted to emulate and represent nature and people in the least

distorted way. Art became more abstract with the coming of photography which freed art from its

naturalistic constraints, from its need to represent everything the way it was. Now art was
capable of doing different things, something which could not be captured by the camera but only

by the artist. Our representational notions also changed with it, it started to move from a

reproductive character which saw representation as a mechanical mirroring of the aspects of the

original to a more symbolic representation, a representation which often tried to say more about

the original than what the original could say about itself. Art didn’t simply become non-concrete

but it became so in order to escape the gaze of the camera. It started to look deeper for motives,

new ways of expression, new ways of speaking. It also entered into communication with itself, a

communication which wasn’t readily accessible to the masses, which was in contrast with

photography that Walter Benjamin portrayed to have started to be evermore commodified with

time. With the digitalization of art, the authenticity of the real has been lost and the duplicate

becomes the real which leads to precession of simulacra and explains how meanings have

changed with digital sources.

The term ‘Precession of Simulacra’ was coined by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard

to describe the postmodern phenomenon where ‘images precede reality’. The succession of

simulacra happens in four stages. The first stage is the reflection of a profound reality. The

second stage masks and denatures a profound reality. The third masks the absence of a profound

reality. And the fourth stage has no relation to any reality. It's its own pure simulacrum. It's the

hyperreal stage where the copy/image becomes the reality. In this process of precession of

simulacra, the sovereign difference between the one and the other, that constituted the beauty of

abstraction disappears. People start substituting the signs of the real for the real. Never again the

real gets a chance to resurrect itself. The boundaries between the real and the image are blurred.

Technology, mass media and advertisements play an important role in creating hyperreality.
Images and experiences which lack profound reality have become the original/authentic source

and our reference point that shapes our understanding of the world we live in.

The phenomenon of mechanical reproduction of art far surpasses the making of

copies/images or representation. It rather creates a simulacrum of the original artwork where the

simulated art is deprived of its aura. The exhibition value takes over cult value and the ritual

value. For example, Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Mona Lisa, it's copies are created endlessly,

each reproduction of the portrait would be a simulacrum of the artwork that would be disengaged

from its history and the artistic merit which leads to the shifting of focus of artwork to its

innumerable reproduction and circulation within the realm of hyperreal which has become the

reality rather than the actual portrait.

Mechanical reproduction of art has brought about a change in the reaction of the masses

towards the artwork. When art becomes more accessible with the help of technology, it leads to

democratization of its consumption. The portrait of Mona Lisa is no longer confined to the

Louvre; rather , it can be experienced by all on their smart devices using the internet. Although

this accessibility helps in a broader engagement with art across different cultures, therefore

allowing various interpretations and breaking the canonical and elite barriers. But this

accessibility leads to the loss of cult value that was associated with traditional art, which

demanded the work of art to remain hidden. Work of art was hence stripped of its aura and

desacralized, started being treated as a commodity that could be bought and sold. We now

experience a work of art that has become a part of the realm of the hyperreal. Its meaning is

shaped by the context of its reproduction rather than its original history. It's experienced through
a filter of mass media. A painting of Madonna that's filtered through a Snapchat lens with

various effects and a combination of vibrant colors will take a completely new meaning, contrary

to the original artistic intent and the cult value that it carried.

The example of Disneyland is used by Baudrillard to explain this phenomenon of

reproducibility and how we are tricked into buying the idea of an American lifestyle. Everything

in Disneyland is the objective profile of America and all its values are depicted by the miniature

and the comic trip of Disneyland. The American way of life, the American values, are depicted

as ideal values as something of high esteem but in reality it's something else, it's masking the real

under this ideological blanket depicting the simulation of the third order. Disneyland exits in

order to hide the fact that it's the "real" country, all of "real" America that is Disneyland. It's

hiding the fact that it lacks the presence of the reality of the real America. Disneyland is

presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real whereas all of Los

Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real but they belong to the hyperreal

order and to the order of simulation. It's no longer a question of false representation of reality but

of concealing (hiding) the fact that the real is no longer real and thus saving the reality principle.

They are trying to feed us the reality which is fake in actuality. Reality is the fact that people no

longer look at each other, but there are institutes for that. They no longer touch each other but

they go for a contactotherapy. They no longer walk, but they go jogging. But what will be

depicted as the "real" is the luxury, money leading to the materialization of life.

Just like the decay of the aura in this world of mechanical reproduction, Baudrillard

explains how the original loses its significance in the real world. This reproduction of artwork
and loss of its aura is just one element of the massive phenomenon of simulation. The

simulacrum becomes the authentic experience overpowering and overshadowing the original

existence, just like the map in the Borges fable outshined the original territory of the empire. A

Picasso painting or a Mona Lisa portrait can be encountered numerous times through

reproduction. But the actual experience of the aura that was gained by visiting the place of its

origin has become almost a forgotten experience.

There has been the birth of new forms of art in the age of mechanical reproduction like

films and photography. Films disrupt the traditional experience of art as it does reproduction of

art into its artwork itself. Duhamel says, “I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts

have been replaced by moving images''. A film challenges the notion of originality as a film is a

combination of reproduced images therefore smudging the difference between what's real and

what's a representation.

Similarly Baudrillard discusses the simulation that media, TV shows cause and how they

blur the boundaries between the real and the image. In ‘The End of the Panopticon’ Baudrillard

talks about the American TV experiment on the Loud family who underwent seven months of

uninterrupted shooting, three hundred hours of nonstop broadcasting, without a script or a

screenplay, the odyssey of a family, its dramas, its joys, its unexpected events, nonstop raw

historical document, and the greatest television performance comparable on the scale of our day

to day life, to the footage of our landing on the moon. This situation became complicated as the

family fell apart during filming. Was the TV responsible? What would have happened if TV

hadn't been there? An illusion of filing the Louds as if TV weren't there was created. “They lived
as if it were not there”. This family was hyperreal in the very nature of its selection. It was a

typical ideal American family, California home, three garages, five children, assured social and

professional status, decorative housewife, upper middle class standing. In a way it's this

statistical perfection that dooms it to death. Was it the TV that was the truth of the Louds? Truth

no longer is the reflexive truth of the mirror, it's a manipulative truth. The eye of TV is no longer

the source of an absolute gaze with transparency. “You no longer watch TV, it is TV that watches

you (live)”.

Benjamin argued that mechanical reproduction of art subverts the authority of the elite by

making art accessible to the masses. The printing press revolutionized the distribution of art by

enabling mass-produced prints of famous paintings. Therefore, artworks that were once limited

to the privileged could be easily enjoyed by everyone and are now open to multiple

interpretations. This democratization of art challenges the notion that only the rich or cultured

individuals are entitled to appreciate and possess works of art. Baudrillard questions the process

of acquiring meaning in this realm of simulacra where the difference between the simulated

meanings and actual experiences are destroyed. The signs have taken over the real.

CONCLUSION

Baudrillard's essay is a continuation of the argument in The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin. Baudrillard deals with the fact that how we are

moving in a world where simulacra precedes the real and with growing technology in the world

of mechanical reproduction that Benjamin talks about, the work of art is losing its aura to
technology. Questions are raised about the future of art and will it be preceded by simulacra. The

realm of hyperreality might subvert and challenge the work of art making it another means of

creating simulation. The virtual world of art has already started blurring the lines between the

real and the virtual. Artificiality is taking control over the real. The aura that was experienced

after visiting the Louvre to view the portrait of Mona Lisa is now depreciated as everyone can

see the portrait on their phones.

Simulacra doesn't even give the chance of death to the real so that it can resurrect itself and

reclaim its position. Despite Baudrillard's skepticism about everything being consumed by the

hyperreal, Benjamin's perspective has positive aspects too despite his concerns about the loss of

aura. Benjamin depicts how the work of art reaches the common audience, hence opening it to

various perspectives away from the confiscation of the elite and also how the age of mechanical

reproduction has led to new forms of art as well like films and photography which are

reproducible but are still an innovation in the field of art.

 Flow chart

Introduction

What is Art?

How is it produced?

How is it consumed?

How is it disseminated?

Loss of Aura

Loss of Authenticity

Digitalization of Art

Photography and Films

Precession of Simulacra

The Hyperreal
 Mona Lisa

Disneyland

Birth of Simulacra at the Decay of Aura

Loud Family - End of the Panoptican

Democratization of Art

Conclusion
 Works Cited

Baudrillard, J. (1994). In The Precession of Simulacra (pp. 1-42).

BENJAMIN, W. (1969). In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. New York.

Benjamin, W. (2008, January 1). From Baudrillard Studies:

https://baudrillardstudies.ubishops.ca/from-the-arcades-to-hyperreality-benjamin-and-bau
drillard/

Benjamin, W. (2020, October 9). From Medium:

https://medium.com/@yarikagami/notes-on-walter-benjamins-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-
of-mechanical-reproduction-for-my-arts1-5cb3885a8286

Benjamin, W. (2021, August 1). From Cultural Reader:

https://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-work-of-art-in-age-of-mechanical.ht
ml

Benjamin, W. (2023, April 1). From thecollector:

https://www.thecollector.com/walter-benjamin-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction
/

Benjamin, W. (2023, November 18). From bookey:

https://www.bookey.app/book/the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction