Benjamin Response – Faith Mitchell

I agree with Walter Benjamin’s assessment of mechanical reproduction in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” because I think it makes a lot of sense. All reproductions of an original work cannot be exactly like the original because it is exactly what the name suggests: a remake. The reproduction will not have the aura of the original; the two were not created at the exact same place, in the same space, at the same time, by the same person, with the same brush, or with the same feelings. Think of a print of a piece of original art: You can go on Amazon.com and buy a print of The Scream, but it will likely be printed in ink by a factory worker or machine in 2021 New York, not painted in oils or pastels by Edvard Munch himself in 1893 Norway. The print did not and does not hang on the wall of the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway, nor was it the first version of the work to be displayed publicly. Mechanical reproduction erodes this unique original aura. However, it allows for new possibilities, like the artwork to be seen by more people all around the world, who can see it hanging on their living room walls or online, instead of having to travel to a museum or being unaware of the work in general. It allows the artwork to be remixed and inspire other works. We can see versions of Munch’s work in the 1996 movie Scream and its iconic mask. Although the moving images in this movie distract us and draw us away from our own thoughts (the ones the original painting would promote), the movie, or mechanical reproduction, prompts other things, other thoughts, and may have a heightened effect on the audience in a different, yet still similar, way.