2:1 Critical media studies

This post will reflect on two classical texts in critical theory: Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity" (1936) and Adorno och Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) (chapters "The Concept of Enlightenment" and "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception").

Dialectic of Enlightenment

• What is "Enlightenment"?

"Overthrow fantasy with knowledge". Knowledge is seen as the currency of importance; power. "Technology is the essence of this knowledge"

• What is "Dialectic"?

Each influences what happens to another. Dialectal thought includes, from the text "in which each thing is what it is only by becoming what it is not".

• What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Realism believes that objects of cognition exist independently of the mind. Nominalism to the contrary believes these abstract objects do not. An example of nominalist theory is Occam's razor, where this minimalist monk prefers simple hypothesis over complex (unless a more complex hypothesis is warranted). The razor cuts out the additional "fluff" which could only add more complexity compared to a simple theory, which would be easier to test.

Nominalism is important as a concept because enlightenment follows some of the same line of thought. For instance, it is described to reduce forms to position and arrangement "history to facts, things to matter".

• What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

"Myth" symbolizes what is mystic and unknown; what's on "the outside"; the source of fear. The human being is freed from fear when nothing is unknown anymore. Demystification is described to be the purpose with enlightenment.

Enlightenment is also focussed on human as divine and the importance of it controlling nature which is interesting from a cultural and climate standpoint. Take the Netherlands as point for discussion, which is known for controlling nature with its man made reputation; would that make the Dutch more enlightened than a country with more natural wilderness as, say, Nepal?

The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity

• What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

The foundation of society is considered substructure (base). Superstructure refers to everything that doesn't directly have to do with resources needed to produce that what is needed by society, but nevertheless is built upon the base; ideas, philosophies and culture.

Marxist aesthetics seeks equality whilst art value in part is based on uniqueness; cult/authenticity. The contrast is fruitful as a theory promoting innovation (e.g. capitalism) would be less critical towards art. The theory applied is effectively stripping its meaning to pieces. Cultural production is split similarly to other production processes within Marxism, but with additional discussion on reproduction (copyright) which is very relevant today with technology advances such as Spotify.

• Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

Photography was revolutionary compared to painting as the eye perceives faster than the hand can draw. Then came film, adding speech, erasing the traditional cult value and aura of art by adding the camera between the actor and the audience. Benjamin believes that the purpose of art changes throughout the times and the artistic purpose known today might change in the future. An example to see how art changed is Burberry's runway show with holograms. This fulfills both the cult and exhibition values mentioned.

• Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

Benjamin means that the world is not only naturally determined but that changes and experiences through history can change/distort perception. Examples of historical changes that affected our perception of the world are photography, film and the internet.

• What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

Depreciation through reproduction (losing authenticity) is not a threat to natural objects. People want to bring things physically and mentally closer according to Benjamin. This is connected to the drive of reproducing objects. To destroy the aura of an object by reproducing it is connected to the strong sense of a universal equality of things. Aura is connected to the ritual in work of art, resolved by mechanical reproduction. But when authenticity is lost in this process, ritual ceases to be important and politics becomes important instead. Dadaism preceded film to emphasize this, according to Benjamin.