Walter Benjamin's 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction'
In his book 'The work of art in the mechanical age of reproduction', Benjamin states that what sets photography apart from older forms of representation is that photography lacks the characteristics of more established, or traditional, forms of art, which have an 'aura'. He defines 'aura' as a near universal significance of uniqueness and permanence of art and the occurrence of beauty in the natural world.
He talks about the distance of a mountain to someone who is viewing it in the flesh that will appreciate it's aura, it's beauty and it's permanence. By using polaroid and the emulsion lift process, I tried to directly emulate this idea by using a permanent technique followed by another unique and permanent technique to create aura. Each polaroid, as I explained before, is extremely unique and differs in terms of focus and lighting and then, each emulsion lift, with it's finality and individual tares and wrinkles directly represents uniqueness, permanence and art in the way that I moulded the photo on to the page, deciding where it would lie on it's mount. As well as this, I took photos of natural things within Hyde Park which all correlate to giving a sense of the bigger picture of my memory of the park and the park itself. The natural beauty is captured in each photo and it becomes not so much an absolute physical representation of the image as Benjamin says, yet a snapshot that I, the artist of my own work decided upon in that moment.
The fact that emulsion lifted polaroid cannot be replicated in the same way as digital images and negative prints can also adds to it's procession of aura, showing that a photographic process can straddle being more a traditional art form as well as produced by technological functions. Benjamin goes on to compare this idea of the aura of the mountain to a traditional work of art from the renaissance era for example. By depicting the scene with a paintbrush, no person or machine can replicate the artist's masterful work, therefore lending to it's exclusivity. The careful handling off the painting by museums and it's historical context lend to it's absolute permanence and therefore, it's aura. Benjamin also relates this to sculptural work which has the same ideology behind it as the artist's work is irreplaceable. In my 8th image in the series, I took a photo of a statue to represent this idea in my work. I'm taking a permanent and unique photo (with aura) or a permanent and unique art form (with aura) to be followed by a permanent and unique process, emulsion lifting (with aura).
Finally, Benjamin states that some photos can differ from this idea of photos without aura, namely family photos. He states that their unique and lasting value to families as well as their pleasing memory and narrative somewhat give them aura. Through affiliation and sentimentality, some photos stand alone as important unique memories and permanent reminders of identity to relatives. He relates the familial gaze to this as a means of two way looking. The subject looking at the photographer looking back at themselves and preempting a unique pose, visually engaging each other. I emulated this by taking photos of my dad, Richard and my dog, Ted using his own camera. There was a lot of sentimentality behind these photos as I was essentially reinventing my dad's history by looking through the lens of what was once his camera in the park that he grew up in, Hyde Park. By him looking at me and looking at his camera whilst being the subject of my image, huge nostalgic value has encoded into the images in a way that can never be replicated and means more to me than anyone else. This is a souvenir for me and my children even after my dad and I are gone, hence proving that sometimes photos can be in direct procession of aura.
REFERENCES:
Benjamin, W. and Underwood, J. (2008). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. London: Penguin.
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