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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

On the New Art for the Masses and Blending of Low/ High Cultures (Walter Benjamin)

....Ease of Mechanical Reproduction Moves Art out of the Sphere of Authenticity of the "original" and thereby Murders the Aura of 'Ritual'.  The audience becomes "democratized" through "copies" and every "lay" viewer is elevated through the "director's camerawork" to status of 'expert".  The mass viewing experience becomes socialized through the socialization of the media (display in the theatre), and visa versa, the individual also socially conditioned to react in anticipation of a group social/ mass reaction.

It shifts the "cult value" of an Art form into an "exhibition value" in new media and thereby transforms "authenticity" into "profile-ism", imposing an "exhibition anxiety" upon the participatory mass audience members that leads to Byung-Chul Han's Burn-out Society under capitalism.

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