“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”


Benjamin begins this article by discussing how a work of art has always been reproducible. Two procedures or reproducing works of art by the Greeks was founding and stamping. In the beginning of the nineteenth century lithography came into play and the process of reproducing art was at a whole new level. The process of pictorial reproduction accelerated so swiftly because the eye perceives more swiftly than the hand can draw. The process was able to keep up with speech. Film came into play at this point. It is very interesting for me to think about the fact that a stage actor is certainly presented to the public by the actor, but with film, the screen actor is presented through the camera. I never actually sat down and thought about this but after reading this section of Benjamin’s article, it bothers me to think that we are watching what the camera actually wants us to see and not the actor himself. The camera is consistently altering its position based on the performance. Different angles and close-ups are certain factors of movement that the camera decides upon, not the screen actor.. They are initially the artist but in the end they have no control over what will be seen by the viewer. The camera takes total control and I’m not sure if I agree with that but I guess that’s why there are still stage actors that you can go see perform and see the real thing in front of your own eyes.

Extracts From Camera Lucida

Extracts From Camera Lucida

The article Extracts From Camera Lucida speaks about changing your natural ways and posing for the camera once you realize you are being observed and photographed. Barthes quotes “I have been photographed and knew it. Now, once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of ‘posing,’ I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image.” I believe this statement to be very true. There has not been one specific time that I would take a photograph of a person and after they realized I was photographing them, they didn’t change their pose. I feel almost as if it is just a natural occurrence to do this when you recognize the fact that you are being observed. Most people become uncomfortable when being observed. One will never be able to tell when one photographed is posed or shot in a voyeuristic manner. As I read about this topic in Barthes’ article, it made me start to think about what was spoken in class last week. One will never be able to tell when one photographed is posed or shot in a voyeuristic manner. Every photograph we observed was a question of truth. I absolutely agree with Barthes’ thoughts about ‘Posing’ and not knowing what is real or not.

"The Painter of Modern Life"

Response to Thinking about Photography

Thinking about Photography

The article Thinking about Photography discusses many different ideas about photography and the impact of the medium since the nineteenth century. There are two main ideas that I would like to discuss that were debated in this article.
Photography has been debated about for years about whether this new technology would possibly be considered an art or not. Photography was regarded to be outside of the art world because of its accurateness and the composed recording process often appeared to displace the artist’s compositional creativity. Even though outside of the realm of art, I believe the medium should still be considered an art because of its great power that creates a different kind of art than painting or drawing can produce.
An important discussion in this article is Reading the image. It explains that semiotics and psychoanalysis have contributed to certain adjustments within the humanities. Both of these have been related to the creation of the meaning of photography. Roland Barthes is known for his semiological analysis contribution to visual culture. He thinks that it is reference rather than art, or communication, which is essential to photography. “In photography the referent uniquely sticks to the image.” The time-specific characteristic emerges from this into the photograph. The photograph deals with what was. It is believed that the photograph is always about looking and seeing which I presume to be true.