The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility

“L'histoire de l'art depuis Walter Benjamin”, colloquium in Paris, December 6, 2008: André Gunthert , Maître de conférences , during a lecture

The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility is the title of an essay by the philosopher Walter Benjamin , which he wrote in 1935 while in exile in Paris . It first appeared in 1936 under the title L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , in an editorially revised and abridged French translation.

In his essay Benjamin advocates the thesis that art and its reception itself, especially through the development of photography and film , are subject to change. This happens on the one hand through the possibility of mass reproduction , on the other hand through a changed depiction of reality and thus a changed collective perception. In addition, the work of art loses its aura in these processes , which in turn changes the social function of the media.

The collective aesthetic resulting from reproducibility offers the possibility of development towards social emancipation , but also harbors the danger of political appropriation, as is evident at the time with the rise of fascism .

Position of writing in the art theoretical debate

Benjamin called his work the "first art theory of materialism worthy of the name". While the essay's reception was limited during Benjamin's lifetime and in the immediate post-war period, the text was rediscovered in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the mid-1980s it has been considered one of the founding documents of the culture and media theory of the modern age .

content

In the printed editions, the article in the last authorized version from 1939 usually comprises almost forty pages. It consists of a main part of fifteen chapters consecutively numbered in Roman numerals as well as a preface and an epilogue, within which the epistemological and political significance of the work is emphasized. The motto is a quote from Paul Valéry from 1928, which specifies the subject of the essay: the change in art through the influence of technology.

The foreword deals with the connection between Marxism and art theory . The lines of thought are taken up and concretized in the afterword and the meaning of art in fascism is worked out. The main part is divided into a historical part on art and media history (Chapters I to VI), a transition (Chapter VII) that deals with the connection between photography and film theory, and an aesthetic part that deals with film and art reception (Chapters VIII to XV). In 33 footnotes, the terms and theses of the article are explained, some with detailed quotations from philosophy, art and film history.

The first version, completed in 1935, is structured differently, in addition to differences in content. It comprises 19 chapters, which include the foreword and the epilogue, and which were subsequently numbered in Arabic by the editor and provided with a table of contents.

Marxism and Art Theory

In the introduction, Benjamin prefaces a quote from Paul Valéry, who wrote with reference to the possibilities of modern science and technology:

"One has to be prepared for the fact that such great innovations will change the entire technique of the arts, thereby influencing the invention itself and ultimately perhaps succeeding in changing the concept of art itself in the most magical way."

- Paul Valéry : Pièces sur l'art (excerpt from the quote by Walter Benjamin)

Benjamin then refers to the analysis of the capitalist mode of production by Karl Marx , who had predicted that capitalism would in the future create conditions "which make the abolition of itself possible". With recourse to the theory of base and superstructure drafted in historical materialism , Benjamin emphasizes that the superstructure is subject to a slower process of upheaval than is the case for the relations of production that Benjamin called "substructure" . Only in the present day, after more than half a century, would "the change in production conditions be brought to bear in all cultural areas".

From this development new prognostic theses could now be derived, not about the art of the proletariat after it seized power or in a classless society , but "about the development tendencies of art under the current production conditions". Their dialectics are noticeable both in the superstructure and in the economy. Benjamin ascribes a "battle value" to the theses to be developed, which are to be contrasted with the traditional and fascist terms used such as creativity and ingenuity , eternity and mystery . In contrast to the current art theory, he considers the terms he introduced below to be “completely useless for the purposes of fascism [...]. On the other hand, they can be used to formulate revolutionary demands in art politics. "

The decay of the aura

A photo enlargement from a photo negative on baryta paper (the forerunner of today's photo paper) is completed with a dry press

The first chapter describes a historical outline of the artistic reproduction techniques, starting in antiquity , when art forms and coins were reproduced with casting and embossing . In the early modern period , woodcut , copperplate engraving and, in particular, letterpress printing brought about enormous changes, including social changes, due to the reproducibility of writing. Reproduction technology reached a further stage with lithography ; the graphic was thus enabled to "accompany everyday life illustratively". In modern times, photography and film create the possibilities for mass reproduction. From this historical overview Benjamin develops the thesis that the respective innovations are already contained in the form: "If the illustrated newspaper was virtually hidden in the lithography, then the sound film in the photography."

Benjamin contrasts the reproduction with the original work of art and sees its authenticity in the uniqueness and the here and now of the object. It carries its history as a cultural heritage and is tied to location and time, the authenticity cannot be reproduced. The modern technical possibilities of reproduction, on the other hand, lead to both the mass quality and the mobility of the work of art. Its historical testimony is shaken and it loses its authority: "What withers away in the age of technical reproducibility of the work of art, that is its aura." With the removal of the reproduced from the realm of tradition, a tremendous shock to the traditional goes hand in hand is closely related to the contemporary mass movements. Their “most powerful agent” is the film, since its cathartic side is in both positive and negative “the liquidation of traditional value in cultural heritage”.

In the third chapter Benjamin elaborates the thesis that in the historical process, as the way of existence changes, the way in which human collectives are perceived also changes. He refers to the findings of the scientists of the Vienna School and notes that they did not take into account the social upheavals that found their expression in the changes in perception. "And if changes in the medium of perception [...] can be understood as a decay of the aura, then one can show its social conditions."

Paris photography by Eugène Atget: The shattering of the aura - evidence in the historical process

In the explanation that follows in the fourth chapter, Benjamin defines the term “ aura ”, referring to both natural objects and works of art, as “the unique appearance of a distance, as close as it may be”. The aura consists precisely of the uniqueness and the inherent story of a work of art. Both this uniqueness and the distance are undermined by the reproducibility. The decay of the aura is based both on the concern of “the masses in today's life” to bring things closer spatially and humanly, as well as the tendency to overcome the unique “by absorbing their reproduction”.

In this way, however, art has detached itself from its origins, which lie in religious ritual and the constantly changing tradition. In their origins and in their history, works of art were part of and expression of cultic events. Even in the course of secularization , they retained their “cult value”, as can be seen, for example, in the teaching of l'art pour l'art as their own “theology of art”. With reproducibility, the “cult value” shifts to the “exhibition value” of the work of art: “Just as in prehistoric times the work of art became primarily an instrument of magic through the absolute weight that lay on its cult value [...] Today the work of art through the absolute weight that lies on its exhibition value into a structure with completely new functions, of which the one we are aware of, the artistic one, stands out as the one that one may later recognize as a casual one. "

Change of experience and perception

The second part of the essay, from the sixth chapter on, deals with the transition from photography to film and the developments in film theory. Benjamin explains that after the introduction of photography, the question of “whether photography was an art” was often discussed, and that this question is now being taken up by film theorists. However, there is no preliminary question as to whether "the overall character of art has not changed" through the invention of photography and later through the development of the sound film.

With this in mind, the eighth chapter compares film with other forms of media. In contrast to direct communication in the theater, in the perception of cinematic images the “apparatus” stands between the audience and the performer. With technical means, the actor is staged and illuminated during the production of the film, tested by the camera, the scene cut and presented. “The audience only empathizes with the actor by empathizing with the apparatus. So it takes over his attitude: it tests. "

This process reveals the loss of aura in the film, the uniqueness of every performance, the here and now of the drama, has given way. The film industry replaces it with an artificial build-up of “personality” outside of the film, the star cult . The reference is clear in the term: the star cult replaces the lost cult value of the work of art, which now becomes an exhibition value.

Benjamin makes a further comparison in the eleventh chapter with the "Change of Imagery": In his work, a painter has a natural distance from the object he is painting, comparable to a magician who distances a person by laying on a hand, heals. The cameraman, on the other hand, penetrates his subject like a surgeon into a patient's body. The result is a changed representation of reality, be it through the “ optically unconscious ”, by accelerating image sequences through film montage or through new forms of representation such as slow motion and close-ups . The pictures are completely different: “The painter's is a total, that of the cameraman is manifoldly dismembered, the parts of which come together according to a new law.” Benjamin describes the accelerated forms of action and perception with the term “ shock effect ”. Dadaism had already anticipated these effects, which the audience seeks in film, using painting and literature.

The consequence is the change in image reception. As an example, in chapter 12 Benjamin compares a painting by Pablo Picasso with a film by Charles Chaplin : The masses reject the modern image with incomprehension and react "backwards", but the same audience sees a modern " Grotesque film ”with enthusiasm and is progressive from that point of view. One explanation is that, as an important social indicator, the “desire to look and experience” always goes hand in hand with the attitude of “wanting to judge”. The viewing of paintings was historically reserved for a few: "In the churches and monasteries of the Middle Ages and at the royal courts up to the end of the eighteenth century, the collective reception of paintings did not take place simultaneously, but in many stages and hierarchically mediated." With the opening of the galleries for a broad audience, however, was not given the opportunity of " apperception " at the same time .

In the cinema, on the other hand, the reactions of the individuals become the sum total of the reactions of the audience, who at the same time control each other in their demonstrations. The cult value of the film is suppressed not only by the fact that it brings the viewer into an appraising attitude, but also that no attention is necessary for this appraising attitude: "The audience is an examiner, but a distracted one" wrote Benjamin at the end of the fifteenth chapter.

Art and Politics in Fascism

With the afterword, Benjamin refers to the political situation in the mid-1930s and thus comes back to the prognostic claim of the article formulated in the foreword. Fascism tries to organize the proletarian masses without complying with their demand for a change in property relations. Rather, he undertakes, in particular using the media of photography and film, an “aestheticization of politics”, the central component of which is the Führer cult and which will culminate in war: “War, and only war, makes it possible to mass movements on a large scale To give a goal while preserving the inherited ownership. "

As a central example, he cites a few paragraphs from Marinetti's manifesto on the Ethiopian colonial war , in which the war is ascribed an aesthetic beauty. Benjamin shows that technical developments in general and art in particular are used by fascism not for the benefit of the masses, but for the aestheticization of war. This arises from the "discrepancy between enormous means of production and their inadequate utilization", ie the accumulation of capital through growing mechanization on the one hand and rising unemployment and the lack of sales markets on the other. The lost aura in the political appropriation is replaced by cultic rituals, apparently as the completion of l'art pour l'art . Benjamin closes the text with the hope that the politicization of art can be opposed to this development:

“So it is about the aestheticization of the politics that fascism pursues. Communism answers it with the politicization of art. "

- Walter Benjamin : The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility

Terms used

Walter Benjamin introduced, elaborated or compiled a number of terms in the work of art essay, the use of which in the context were at least unusual or were redefined by him. In some cases, they are subject to an elusive, “difficult change in meaning”; for some, their interpretation and context is still controversial today.

Apperception

In Benjamin's work, the term “ apperception ” describes “the appropriation of an object through the interplay of sensual and spiritual perception.” He also uses the words “ perception ” and sometimes “ reception ” in this context. He makes no fundamental difference between the perception of objects in nature and the reception of works of art, even if the latter is in the foreground. But he distinguishes between the reception of “real” and “reproduced” art and between “tactile” and “optical” reception, that is, appropriation through use or perception.

aura

→ Main article : Aura (Benjamin)

The term “aura” coined by Benjamin came from Greek mythology and had already been taken up by followers of the esoteric movement at the end of the 19th century . They described an energy body , the radiation of which surrounds people like a corona. Benjamin used the term in his writings for the first time in 1930 in the protocols of experience on hashish use , in which he clearly and polemically differentiated himself from the theosophists with his communications on the nature of the aura . In the course of his work he developed further definitions of the term and applied it in particular to objects of nature and art. In the essay Small History of Photography , published in 1931, he described it as a phenomenon that can still be found in the daguerreotype and early portrait photography: The aura is a “strange web of space and time: a unique appearance of a distance, as close as it may be ". The liberation from the aura, for example recognizable in the forerunner of the surrealist photography by Eugène Atget , also means the secularization of the work of art and justifies its political explosiveness: “The shattering of the aura is the signature of a perception, its sense for everything similar in the world has grown in such a way that through reproduction she also gains it from the unique. "

The aura plays a central role in the work of art. Based on their destruction and their loss, Benjamin shows the social significance that the technical development of the media has. The aura, in nature as in art, is shaped by its here and now as well as by the characteristics of "inaccessibility", "authenticity" and "uniqueness" of the perceived objects. It is the aura that makes the works historical witnesses and gives them authority. Literally, as in the essay on photographs, it is defined as “the unique appearance of a distance, as close as it may be”. With the reproducibility, both the uniqueness and its distance are canceled out, a work of art can be viewed and owned at any time and in any place. It thus loses its historical testimony and ultimately its authority. The aura of the work of art disintegrates in favor of the desire of the masses to bring things closer by taking up the reproduction.

In the essay About some motifs in Baudelaire from 1939, Benjamin describes the term as a social experience, the aura arises from the ability of humans to bring natural phenomena and works of art to life when they look at them, to give them a look they themselves do not have: “But the expectation is inherent in the gaze to be reciprocated by the one to whom it gives itself. […] To experience the aura of an appearance means to defend it with the ability to look up. ”With a note in the unfinished work of Passages , on which Benjamin worked from 1927 until his death, he contrasts the terms aura and trace : “The trace is the appearance of a closeness, as far as what it left behind may be. The aura is an appearance of a distance, as close as what it evokes may be. In the trail we get hold of the matter; in the aura it seizes us. "

Aestheticization of Politics

With the expression “aestheticization of politics” Benjamin describes the political manifestation of fascism with its effects-based staging through public speeches, marches, sporting events and newsreels. Ritual forms of representation serve the suggestive and ideological influence. He contrasts the term with the “politicization of aesthetics” or the “politicization of art”.

Shock effect

Shock effect of Dadaism: the work of art as the center of a scandal. (here: Man Ray 1934)

Benjamin uses the terms “shock” and “shock effect” for the character of use in art, effects that he sees in both film and Dadaism. Chock arises, for example, through a certain cut of filmic images, but also in sound poetry . It finds a counterpart in the accelerated forms of action and perception in modern times, for example in technology, in traffic or in assembly line work . The term chock was also introduced by Benjamin in the essay on the photograph: with the chock, the traditional patterns of perception and association mechanisms are overridden, the chock promotes the shattering of the aura. "The immersion, which became a school of anti-social behavior in the degeneracy of the bourgeoisie, is contrasted with distraction as a variety of social behavior."

heritage Site

The term “cultural heritage” is used by Benjamin, as by other German intellectuals and artists in the 1930s and 1940s, as a term for the appropriation of cultural tradition in the present. This was intended to emphasize the tradition of the European Enlightenment against its "denigration by the National Socialists". It thus has a slightly different meaning in the essay than the term in use today of cultural heritage , which describes a cultural asset that is worthy of protection.

medium

Benjamin already defined the term "medium" in his linguistic writing from 1916 as "the immediacy of all spiritual communication". He is referring to Hegel's aesthetics and is based on a basic theological understanding as well as a sacred legacy of the terminology. But he questions “the way in which human sensory perception is organized”, because it “is not only natural but also historically conditioned”. The importance of the work of art is seen in the fact that there is a break with the theological heritage in favor of historical materialism: “Perception basically takes place in a medium, in a milieu in which natural, social, historical and technical facts constellate into a historical a priori . "

Optical unconscious

The "optically unconscious" is a term coined by Benjamin. He describes the new forms of seeing and experiencing that arise through the technical possibilities of the camera, such as close-up or slow motion:

“Our pubs and city streets, our offices and furnished rooms, our train stations and factories seemed hopeless to lock us in. Then the film came and blew up this dungeon world with the dynamite of a tenth of a second, so that we can now undertake adventurous journeys between its widely scattered ruins. The space expands under the close-up, the movement under slow motion. "

- Walter Benjamin

Only the camera shows us the “optical unconscious”, just as psychoanalysis made the instinctual unconscious tangible.

Emergence

In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility, Walter Benjamin has bundled insights and reflections on the changes in art and forms of experience under the influence of the media. Although it only contains forty printed pages, the essay contains historical and aesthetic representations that have had a lasting impact on the foundations of today's media studies .

Historical background

Growing isolation: stairs in the Chateau de Vernuche ( About the exile years of the philosopher Walter Benjamin - Gisinger / Raoux 2008)

The essay was written in 1935, at a time when National Socialism was consolidating in the German Reich . The totalitarian state made use of the expression of the masses, with extensive confirmation from all strata of the population and, for example, with the cult of the Führer, a conscious “aestheticization of politics”, as Benjamin put it. At the same time formed in France and in Spain movements Popular Front for the Democracy rescue and against fascism resistance to make. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was under Stalin on the eve of the “ purges ” . During this time, there was also an intensified ideological struggle in art and culture, which was expressed in numerous writings, for example by Siegfried Kracauer , László Moholy-Nagy or Rudolf Arnheim . Out of the feeling of growing isolation in his exile in Paris, Benjamin described the situation in his 1940 theses on history as a “moment when the politicians whom the opponents of fascism had hoped for are down and their defeat with the betrayal of their own Affirm cause ”.

Work context

Within Benjamin's writings, the work is in continuity around the concept of the medium , which Benjamin already used in his early works. In his 1916 essay On language in general and on human language, he assumes that language is not limited to the utterances of people, but that objects also have a message. The idea can be found in his dissertation in 1920, The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism , when he describes that the knowledge and communication of art is also linked to the media. In the one-way street from 1928, Benjamin examines the development of photography and film, as well as considering the mediality of language and literature. The visual mass media, newspapers, radio and film, their influence on art and the changing public became Benjamin's main focus in the mid-1920s, alongside his reflections on the authorship and public impact of texts. With his publication A Brief History of Photography , he drew a historical summary as early as 1930.

Besides and after completing the last version of the work of art in 1939, Benjamin continued to deal with the questions of the importance of reproducibility. His essay on Eduard Fuchs (Eduard Fuchs, the collector and the historian) from 1937 contains a historical theory of reception. In About some motifs by Baudelaire from 1939, he questions the relationship between “ chock ” and experience.

Editorial history

Benjamin reworked the essay several times, so that different versions are available. Benjamin 's Collected Writings, published between 1972 and 1989, contain four different versions. The first is based on the handwritten script, which was probably completed in December 1935 and was published in Volume I in 1972. An expanded, second version was printed in the 1970s and as a supplement in Volume VII. The translation by Pierre Klossowski , which was published in 1936 in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung of the Frankfurt Institute under the title L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée , also contained in Volume I, was subject to numerous editorial changes and deletions that Benjamin did not accept . He made further revisions between 1936 and 1939, the result of which is considered the third and last authorized version. This was first published in 1955 in the two-volume collection of writings , published in 1963 as an independent text in Three Studies on Art Sociology and in 1972 in Volume I of the Collected Writings .

First German versions

Benjamin initially planned to publish the essay in the Moscow journal Internationale Literatur - Deutsche Blätter (IL), which had existed since 1931 . At the end of 1935 he sent the manuscript to the Moscow-based director and theater critic Bernhard Reich , the husband of Benjamin's friend, actress Asja Lacis . He hoped that the publication would be mediated in the IL, but Reich refused with a detailed explanation. In a letter dated February 19, 1936, he wrote: "Your method is so alien to me that it is not possible for me to point out errors which I believe you have made." The typescripts of this first version are lost gone, but a handwritten template has been preserved, which was printed as the first version in the Gesammelte Schriften .

In July 1936 Benjamin tried to put the essay in the exile magazine Das Wort , which was also published in Moscow, and hoped that Bertolt Brecht and Margarete Steffin would mediate . But even this hope was dashed in 1937, when Willi Bredel, as the managing editor, sent a rejection, "because although I find it very interesting, I could only make it in continuations because of the large scope." However, it can be assumed that it is not the length of the text was the reason for the rejection, but the theses contained therein met with resentment, "but the Moscow trials also did the rest to prevent publication."

The French print version

Benjamin denied his living in exile in Paris mainly works for the after New York moved and led by Max Horkheimer standing Frankfurt Institute for Social Research . The financial dependence on the institute made concessions and the repeated revision of the script necessary. A number of documents that have been preserved prove the sometimes tense editing and publication by the institute to which Benjamin offered the article for publication in October 1935. Changes were made with the translation by Pierre Klossowski , and Horkheimer also implemented drastic cuts. Hans Klaus Brill, Horkheimer's secretary in the Paris office, wrote to him in February 1936: “The whole thing was a difficult birth. During the discussion with you and when setting the delivery date, Klossowski evidently did not understand either the difficulty of the text or the difficulties resulting from the collaboration with Dr. B [enjamin] revealed, had the slightest idea. […] It is now finished, and yesterday evening I made a few more deletions […] I assume that Mr B [enjamin] will be quite angry about my lines ”.

Benjamin wrote to Horkheimer about this process: "The first chapters, which Klossowski translated without a preliminary discussion with me, contained numerous misunderstandings and distortions." However, while the collaboration with Pierre Klossowski turned out to be fruitful over time, the collaboration with Brill led to an argument. because it "turned out that Brill made deletions in the artwork behind my back immediately after the joint review and in places that had been the subject of this review ." For example, "the complete deletion of the first chapter ... the entire Work lost its direction ”.

In a letter of March 18, 1936, Horkheimer resolved the dispute that had arisen over the first chapter, which corresponds to the preface of the later editions, to Benjamin's disadvantage. As head of the institute, he decided, referring to the economic and political situation: "We have to do everything we can to protect the journal as a scientific organ from being drawn into political press discussions." Not to be accused of being communist in the US. Accordingly, Brill's approach was "a little too precise ... rather than too frivolous". For Horkheimer it was precisely the great importance of the font that was the reason to take away its political orientation: “I and I consider your essay to be a fundamental statement ... However, especially with such exposed statements, we have to reserve the right to make changes for the reasons indicated. ... After repeated consultation with all local employees, we have come to the conclusion that this section cannot appear. "

The letter included a list of the changes made. Accordingly, the foreword, referred to as Chapter 1, was completely deleted, in the afterword the terms "fascism" by " L'état totalitaire " ("the totalitarian state") and "communism" by " les forces constructives de l'humanité " (" the constructive forces of mankind ”) and removed six comments.

Further versions

During the dispute over the editorial team for the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , there was also an exchange of letters between Benjamin and Theodor Adorno , as employees of the Institute for Social Research . It was known that Benjamin sent the template for the French translation to New York after February 7, 1936, with numerous changes and additions of his own. This text was thought to be lost for many years, but after Horkheimer's death in 1973 a copy was found in his estate. It was published in Volume VII of the Collected Writings in 1989.

In the course of 1938, Benjamin revised the essay again. He undone most of the deletions of the French print version and made extensive reformulations. The fact that the French translation also led to the continuation of the text is shown by the adoption of some of the editorial revisions. He added a large number of new comments to the final version, as well as Valéry's motto, and restructured the former Chapter I as the Foreword and the last Chapter as the Epilogue. Overall, the last version focuses more on the debates between art and film theories.

In April 1939 he sent the manuscript to New York to Gretel Adorno , who had offered several times to produce the copy. This last authorized version was first in 1955 in the two-volume compilation writings published in 1963 as an independent magazine, in addition to the essays Short History of Photography and Eduard Fuchs, the collector and historian , in three studies on the sociology of art and in 1972 in Volume I of the collected writings published . Publications, meetings and receptions usually refer to this version.

Culture and media theory context

The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility combines four topics in a compact form: in the first chapters the history of reproduction in the arts is presented and then the differences between traditional works of art and works of modernity are explained. The influence of photography and film on social perception is dealt with in the middle section, and the essay concludes with reflections on the appropriation of art by fascism.

In this essay, Benjamin incorporated numerous lines of thought and his own work since the 1920s, as well as contemporary writings by various authors, and examples of film and art. Through the quotations and paradigms, the text contains a kind of collage in itself , a " tactile element " as described in the article. The following is a brief description of the background to the individual representations.

Reproductive techniques

At the time the work of art was created in 1935, reproducibility, both in printing technology, in film history and in musical reproduction technology, had developed rapidly within thirty years, the end of which was not in sight. With the invention of heliogravure at the end of the 19th century and even more with the development of offset printing at the beginning of the 20th century, it became technically possible to reproduce photographs by printing. This gave rise to a different kind of newspaper culture , in particular the illustrated magazines established themselves on the one hand as an entertainment medium, but on the other hand also brought sophisticated and scientific publications with them. The innovations in photo technology, such as compact and fast moving 35mm cameras , led to upheavals in photojournalism and an enormous upswing in the newspaper industry .

In addition to photo journalism, the artistic demands on photography, which had established itself alongside painting as an independent art form as early as the 19th century, grew . It was not limited to depicting reality, since the early 1920s, experimental photography, such as photograms and photomontages, received great attention . In 1925, László Moholy-Nagy launched the volume painting as the first publication on the new media in the series of Bauhaus books . Photography. Film that became a standard work. Further photo books followed and enjoyed growing popularity.

Reproduction technology in music began with the invention of the gramophone in 1887, the ability to record and reproduce sounds, and record production from 1892. The introduction of a uniform drive via electric motors , electrical sound pick-up and the supply of electricity to households at the latest in In the course of the 1920s, the music lovers of the 1930s were in a fundamentally different situation than that "in which the music listener had to find himself in the nineteenth century".

In the work of art, Benjamin's main interest is the development of the film . From the beginning he describes the work of the film operator at the end of the 19th century and the recording of moving images that could be reproduced in kinetoscopes . With the spread of the sound film , this medium developed into an economic as well as a cultural greatness within a few years: From 1911, feature films were produced and shown in permanent venues. As early as 1914 there were around 2,500 cinemas in Germany, in 1925 there were 4,000, including some large cinemas with more than 1,000 seats. There were almost ten years between the premiere of the first full-length sound film in feature film quality in the USA in 1927 and the worldwide replacement of the silent film . When Benjamin wrote his essay in 1935, this upheaval was already well advanced.

Works of art included

With a large number of exemplary artists, works of the visual arts , literature as well as silent and sound films, Benjamin has given the essay an empirical basis in the running text and in footnotes. The development of reproduced music, on the other hand, has not been taken into account, even if the theses are also important for the reception of music in modern times and postmodern times . An indication of the importance of the reproducibility of music can be found in an inserted quote from Leonardo da Vinci on the synthesis of art and science:

“Painting is superior to music because it does not have to die as soon as it is brought into being, as is the case with unfortunate music… The music that evaporates as soon as it is created is inferior to painting that with the use of the varnish has become eternal. "

- Leonardo da Vinci : Frammenti letterarii e filosofici

Directors and films

Benjamin cites numerous films as examples, thus showing a brief outline of the development of the film, underpinning his theses and illustrating the questions of whether film is an art and what effect the film can have on the audience or the masses. After the first version and for the French print version, some of the cited film titles were deleted and some not included in later versions. In the following table, all of the films mentioned in the various versions of the essay are listed with their respective references.

Movie	Director	annotation	Illustration
Faust - a German folk tale Germany, 1926	Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1888–1931)	Mentioned in Chapter II, Note 4: Example when explaining the aura , the film adaptation of Faust in relation to the Weimar premiere
Ben Hur USA, 1925	Fred Niblo (1874-1948)	Only mentioned in the first version, Chapter III: Example for the historical film
Cleopatra USA, 1928	Roy William Neill (1897-1946)	Only mentioned in the first version, Chapter III: Example for the historical film
Cleopatra USA, 1934	Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959)	Only mentioned in the first version, Chapter III: Example for the historical film
Fridericus Germany, 1936	Johannes Meyer (1888–1976)	Only mentioned in the first version, Chapter III: Example for the historical film
Napoleon France, 1927	Abel Gance (1889-1981)	Mention of the film only in the first version, Chapter III: Example for the historical film. In all versions, Abel Gance's article Le temps de l'image est venu (1927) is quoted several times .
L'Opinion publique (orig. A woman in Paris ; Eng. A woman in Paris or The nights of a beautiful woman ) USA 1923	Charles Chaplin (1889–1977)	Mentioned in Chapter VII: Considerations on the question of whether film is an art
La Ruée vers l'or (orig. Goldrush ; dt. Gold Rush ) USA, 1925	Charles Chaplin (1889–1977)	Mentioned in Chapter VII: Considerations on the question of whether film is an art
A Midsummer Night's Dream USA, 1935	Max Reinhardt (1873-1943)	Mentioned in Chapter VII: Considerations on the question of whether film is an art and on the mythization of films. This is based on a quote from a film review by Franz Werfel about this film, which sees the possibility of the creation of the supernatural through the film.
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc France, 1928	Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889–1968)	Mentioned in Note 19, Chapter IX: Example comparing actors on stage and in film
Three songs about Lenin (orig.Tri pesni o Lenine ) USSR, 1934	Dziga Vertov (1896-1954)	Mentioned in Chapter X: Film Reception by the Audience
Misère auf Borinage ( orig.Borinage ; documentary about the miners' strike in Borinage ) Belgium, 1934	Joris Ivens (1898-1989)	Mentioned in Chapter X: Film Reception by the Audience
The Idiot Germany, 1919	Heinz Hanus (1882–1972)	Mention only in the first version, Chapter XI: Development of the film, role of the actor
Mickey Mouse USA, 1928-1935	Walt Disney (1901-1966)	Only mentioned in the first version, Chapter XVI: Thoughts on the relationship between the optically unconscious and the instinctual unconscious

Artist and painting

As concrete examples of the fine arts, three well-known paintings of old masters are listed and received in the first part of the article . Further comparisons from the area of ​​modernism are more general and do not relate to specific works by the named artists.

plant	Artist	annotation	Illustration
Mona Lisa painting, 1503–1505	Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)	Mentioned in Chapter II, Note 2: on the historicity of works of art. Further mentions of Leonardo as theoretician can be found in Chapters XII, Note 23 (here he is quoted on music, as stated above), and XIII, Note 24, with his synthesis of art and science in a presentation by Valéry.
The anatomy of Dr. Tulp painting, 1632	Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669)	Mentioned in Chapter IV, Note 6: as an example of the “passionate concern to bring things closer together spatially and humanly”.
Sistine Madonna painting, 1512/13	Raphael (1483-1520)	Mention in Note 11, Chapter V: Example of the meaning of the terms exhibition value and cult value
	Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)	Mentioned in Chapter XII: contrasting example of “the relationship of the crowd to art”, here a painting by Picasso in contrast to a film by Chaplin.
	Hans Arp (1886–1966)	Mentioned in Chapter XIV: on the shock effect of Dadaism, a picture by Hans Arp as a counterpart to a picture by André Derain.
	André Derain (1880–1954)	Mention in Chapter XIV: s. above.

Writer and prose

In addition, some works from literature, poetry and prose, have been incorporated, some with quotations that underline the lines of thought or confirm theses. Some of the terms listed are metaphors, their connection results in part from the overall context of Benjamin's work.

plant	author	annotation	Illustration
Walk poem, 1925	Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)	Background in Chapter III: The example for the concept of aura - "On a summer afternoon, following a mountain range on the horizon or a branch ..." - goes back to Rilke's poem Walk . Mention in Chapter XIV: on the shock effect of Dadaism (see below).
Un Coup de dés (German dice cup ) poem, 1897	Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)	Example in Chapter IV: In poetry, Mallarmé was the first to realize the standpoint of l'art pour l'art : in his poem Un Coup de dés , the typeface becomes the bearer of meaning.
The recordings of the cameraman Serafion Gubbio ( it.si gira , dt. Also cranks , fr.on tourne ) Roman, 1915	Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)	Mentioned in Chapter IX: as an example for the “change of the actor by the test performance” of the camera. The novel mentioned by Benjamin as It is being filmed (based on an essay in L'art cinématographique ) tells of the cameraman's self-alienation from the recording technology.
Heinrich von Ofterdingen novel fragment, 1802	Novalis (1772-1801)	Background in Chapter XI: The metaphor of the blue flower is the symbol of romanticism and ultimately goes back to the Ofterdingen novel by Novalis. The background is also a quote from Benjamin himself from 1927: “One no longer dreams of the blue flower. Anyone who wakes up today as Heinrich von Ofterdingen must have overslept. "
	August Stramm (1874–1915)	Mentioned in Chapter XIV: on the shock effect of Dadaism, a poem by August Stramm as a counterpart to a poem by Rilke.

Fonts included

In addition to the reference to the philosophical classics Karl Marx and GWF Hegel, Benjamin deals with a variety of contemporary texts on art and politics, which he quotes and comments on in the text or in the footnotes. The following are the most important essays and articles with references.

plant	author	annotation	Illustration
La conquête de l'ubiquité essay, 1928 (1934)	Paul Valéry (1871-1945)	Quoted before the foreword: Article on the technical exploitation of art, especially music through the gramophone and radio
The Threepenny Trial Essay, 1931	Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)	Quoted in note 12, chapter III: on the displayability of the reproduced work of art, analogous considerations in Brecht, in the French print version this note was deleted. Another quote from the essay in Note 17, Chapter X: about the importance of the audience and the consideration of the performer
Film as Art 1932	Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007)	Quoted in Chapter IX, as well as a detailed description in Note 19: on the effect and art forms of film.
Film direction and film manuscript 1928	Vsevolod Illarionowitsch Pudowkin (1893–1953)	Quoted in Note 19, Chapter IX: in the continuation of the descriptions of Arnhem, the film as an art medium of materialistic representation.
Croisière d'hiver. Voyage en Amérique Centrale Essay, 1933	Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)	Quoted in note 21, Chapter X: as a point of focus on Benjamin's thesis that literary authority becomes common property.
La technique et l'homme essay, 1936	Luc Durtain (1881-1959)	Quoted in Note 22, Chapter XI: as an example of the cameraman's intrusion into the captured image.
Scènes de la vie future (German mirror of the future , 1931) essay 1930	Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)	Quoted in Chapter XIV: with an example of the thesis that the film prevents the viewer's own association processes.
Il Poema Africano Della Divisione "28 Ottobre" Manifesto, 1937	Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944)	Quoted in the afterword: as an example of the aestheticization of politics , here of war. Benjamin quoted from the Italian newspaper La Stampa , which had published a report by Marinetti in October 1935, immediately after the Italian troops marched into Ethiopia .

Reception history

During Benjamin's lifetime, the inclusion of the essay was marked by distinct contrasts: during the editing process for the French print version, the draft was discussed more intensively than any other of his publications. After the publication, however, there was initially hardly any reaction. It was not until the late 1960s that the political dimension of the article was publicly discussed, and its media-theoretical significance was worked out and recognized in the 1980s.

Reception during lifetime

Benjamin, isolated in exile, had linked the work of art with the hope of attracting attention from French intellectuals. This wish did not come true. On July 4, 1936, he wrote to Alfred Cohn: “My attempt to bring the work up for debate among the local emigrated writers was too carefully prepared not to yield a rich informational return. But this was almost his only one. The most interesting thing was the efforts of the party members among the writers to thwart the debate in my work, if not the lecture. "

This statement suggests another dilemma of ignoring the essay. Benjamin had hoped to get a publication in one of the German-language exile magazines appearing in the Soviet Union, since he saw the epistemological foundations of his work as a contribution to revolutionary cultural policy. However, it was already becoming apparent that Stalinism was absolutely absolute , in not allowing critical reflection. This also caused the communist party comrades in France to see “their well-established fiction business” endangered by Benjamin. "By the way, they may justifiably feel safe as long as Moscow sees the be-all and end-all of literary politics in the promotion of left-wing fiction."

In the USA, too, there were hardly any readers for the article, which was published in French in an otherwise German-language organ of exile literature. However, the American film scholar and director Jay Leyda expressed interest in an English translation from 1937 onwards, but there was neither collaboration with the Institute for Social Research in New York nor fruitful contact with Benjamin, who was increasingly isolated in France. The problem was exacerbated by the behavior of Horkheimer and Adorno, who made no reference to the work of art article in further publications.

Adorno's criticism

Theodor W. Adorno's examination of the essay in numerous of his own writings and letters is regarded as a significant contemporary critic. In his article Über Jazz , published in 1936 , in continuation of Horkheimer's theory of manipulation , he takes the position that mass culture leads to passivity, conformity and the abolition of individuality: “The financial strength of publishers, distribution through radio and, above all, sound film develop a tendency towards centralization, which restricts the freedom of choice and to a large extent hardly allows actual competition; The irresistible propaganda machine continues to hammer the hits into the masses, which it finds good and which are mostly the bad ones, until their tired memory is defenselessly exposed to them. "

In an extensive letter to Benjamin on March 18, 1936, he explains his opinion and directs his main objection to his elaborations on the importance of technology in the arts: “You underestimate the technicality of autonomous art and overestimate that of dependent art.” In particular, Adorno criticizes den Influence of Bertolt Brecht , which he recognizes in the dialectical examination of the works of art: “It is now questionable, and here I see a very sublimated remnant of Brechtian motifs, that you now transfer the concept of the magical aura to the 'autonomous work of art' without any problems and this to assign in a bare way to the counter-revolutionary function. […] But it seems to me that the center of the autonomous work of art does not itself belong on the magical side […], but is dialectical in itself: that it intertwines the magical in the sign of freedom. ”Even more clearly in his rejection of Brecht he will towards the end of the letter. There he writes: "How do I have the feeling, given our theoretical difference, that it is not playing between us at all, but that it is my job to keep your arm stiff until Brecht's sun is once again submerged in exotic waters."

Adorno wrote further criticism of the work of art in a letter of March 21, 1936 to Max Horkheimer. He explains that the tendency of the essay is in his favor, but Benjamin mythizes the demythologization: "Or to put it more drastically, he first pours out the baby with the bath and then worships the empty tub".

Both Adorno and Horkheimer continue to deal with Benjamin's theses in other works as well. This is how Adorno described his essay "On the fetish character in music and the regression of hearing", first published in 1938 in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , in the preface to the third book edition from 1963 as an answer to the work of art. Horkheimer's contribution Art and Mass Culture , published in 1941, also refers to Benjamin, but without naming him. The main contradiction to Benjamin’s statements is that the new technologies and especially the film technology offer opportunities for new types of perception. Both Adorno and Horkheimer, however, emphasize the negative consequences of mass culture. This was particularly the case with them in the chapter on the culture industry. In the work Dialectic of the Enlightenment, the cultural-industrial production is depicted as “mass fraud” and “reproduction of the same thing”, which only reproduces the world as it is and only serves capitalist exploitation interests. This position, known as the regression and manipulation thesis , was the dominant media theory in the post-war period until the 1980s. It was directed against Benjamin's view that the modern media has the possibility of politicizing aesthetics. However, the work of art remained unnamed, "so that his suggestions were only accepted when the student movement began to question Adorno's view in the early 1970s."

Brecht's criticism

Adorno saw and criticized Bertolt Brecht's influence. In fact, Brecht and Benjamin met in Skovsbostrand, Denmark in 1934, 1936 and 1938 , and worked on texts together. It is documented that they discussed the French version of the work of art in the summer of 1936. Benjamin wrote about this in a letter to Alfred Cohn: “Your admission by Brecht was not without resistance, indeed it did not take place without clashes. But all this was very fruitful and led without the core of the work in the least to touch to several notable improvements. "Even in the texts themselves cooperation of both can be seen as Benjamin moves into the work of art essay connect to Brecht's The Threepenny process , in who had previously resorted to Benjamin's Little History of Photography . What Brecht valued about the work of art becomes clear in a letter to Mordecai Gorelik in March 1937, to whom he recommended the text: “A work [...] by Benjamin, in which he states how revolutionary the fact that works of art are technically multiplied on a large scale can (photography, film), on which art and art perception has an impact. "

The concept of aura, on the other hand, was not understood by Brecht, he classified it in the realm of mysticism . In 1938, after Benjamin's one more visit, he noted in his work journal:

“He starts from something he calls aura, which is related to dreaming (waking dreams). He says: if you feel a look directed at yourself, also from your back, you return it (!). the expectation that what one looks at will look at oneself creates the aura. this is said to be in decline lately, along with the ritual. b [enjamin] discovered this when analyzing the film, where aura disintegrates through the reproducibility of works of art. all mysticism, with an attitude against mysticism. The materialistic conception of history is adapted in this form! it's pretty horrible. "

- Bertolt Brecht : Arbeitsjournal, 1938

This quotation, also listed in the editorial notes on Benjamin's Collected Writings, was used many times to illustrate Brecht's negative attitude towards the work of art. This negative attitude was not confirmed by later Benjamin and Brecht research. Günter Hartung pointed out that the note was based on Benjamin's Baudelaire studies and not on the work of art.

Benjamin's friend Gershom Scholem , a religious scholar and Kabbalah specialist, welcomed the metaphysical conception of the term aura and posthumously predicted that the essay could "be predicted with certainty an intense afterlife". He criticized, however, that the author had developed a "ravishingly false philosophy of film as the truly revolutionary art form out of Marxist categories".

Politicization of Aesthetics

After the war , the font went largely unnoticed even after its publications in 1955 and 1963. It was not until the late 1960s that Benjamin's theses were first highlighted and critically contrasted by Helmut Heißenbüttel and Helmut Lethen with Adorno's aesthetic theory . In 1970, Hans Magnus Enzensberger referred to The Work of Art in the Age of Its Reproducibility in his theory of media practice : “Thirty-five years ago, at a point in time when the consciousness industry was still relatively little developed, Walter Benjamin discovered this phenomenon of a clairvoyant dialectical- subjected to materialistic analysis. The theory since then has not caught up with his approach, let alone carried it forward. ”With this, the text became more widely known and was discussed by the New Left . The focus was on Benjamin's remarks on the aestheticization of politics , which were opposed to Adorno's manipulation theory , according to which the culture industry controls social mass consciousness.

The student movement took up the work of art, emphasized the criticism of the bourgeois idealistic ideas of art and wrote “the demand for the politicization of art ”. Van Reijken and Van Doorn argue that the work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility is the work with which Benjamin “should become a cult figure of the 68 generation”.

Media theoretical reception

With the growing interest in media and communication research, the media-historical dimension of Benjamin's writing was discovered since the mid-1980s and related to other media aesthetic publications from the 1920s and 1930s, for example by Siegfried Kracauer and Rudolf Arnheim. It was not the ideological function of mass culture that was placed at the center of reception, but Benjamin's considerations on the role of the media in the change in forms of art, communication and experience. Jonathan Crary, art historian at Columbia University, pays tribute to the work as follows:

“More than anyone else, Walter Benjamin may have designed the heterogeneous structure of the events and objects [...]. In the various fragments of his writings we encounter a changeable and changing viewer who is shaped by new urban spaces, technologies and new economic and symbolic functions of images and products. […] For Benjamin, perception was deeply complementary and kinetic - it makes it clear that modernity no longer allows a contemplative observer. "

- Jonathan Crary : Techniques of the Viewer

Although Benjamin's concept of media is far removed from the “news and communication technology reduced conception of mediality”, the work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility , together with Benjamin's writings Kleine Geschichte der Photographie from 1931 and The Author as Producer from 1934, is the founding document of modern media theory.

literature

Print versions

The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (first German version, 1935); in:

• Walter Benjamin: Collected Writings. Volume I, work edition Volume 2, edited by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-28531-9 , pp. 431-469.

L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée (translated and abridged French version by Pierre Klossowski, 1936) In:

• Journal of Social Research. 5, 1936, No. 1, pp. 40-66.
• Walter Benjamin: Collected Writings. Volume I, work edition Volume 2, edited by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-28531-9 , pp. 709-739.

The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (second, extended German version, 1936); in:

• Walter Benjamin: Collected Writings. Volume VII, work edition Volume 1, edited by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-28531-9 , pp. 350–384.

The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. (third, authorized final version, 1939); In:

• Walter Benjamin: Writings. Volume I, edited by Theodor W. Adorno. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1955, pp. 366-405.
• Walter Benjamin: Three Studies in Art Sociology. edition Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1963, ISBN 3-518-10028-9 , pp. 7-63. (This edition also contains the essays Small history of photography. (1931) and Eduard Fuchs, the collector and the historian. (1937).)
• Walter Benjamin: Collected Writings. Volume I, work edition Volume 2, edited by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-28531-9 , pp. 471-508.
• Walter Benjamin: Media Aesthetic Writings. edited by Detlev Schöttker. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-29201-3 , pp. 351-383.
• Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. Suhrkamp Study Library, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-27001-1 , pp. 7-50.

The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (five versions) In:

• Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility , works and bequests. Critical Complete Edition, Volume 16, Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-58589-4 .

Secondary literature

• Birgit Recki : Aura and autonomy. On the subjectivity of art in Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1988, ISBN 3-88479-361-6 .
• Willem van Reijen , Herman van Doorn: Stays and Passages. Life and work of Walter Benjamin. A chronicle. Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-58302-6 .
• Sven Kramer : Walter Benjamin as an introduction. Junius, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-88506-373-5 .
• Christian Schulte (Ed.): Walter Benjamin's Media Theory, 12 essays. UVK-Verlag, Konstanz 2005, ISBN 3-89669-467-7 .

Web links

Wikiquote: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility  - quotations

Wikisource: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (third version)  - sources and full texts

• Adele Gerdes: Walter Benjamin and the reproduction essay. An introductory sketch. Manuscript, Bielefeld University, 2000; also as a PDF file , accessed on November 16, 2010
• Martin Bartenberger: Defend Walter Benjamin against his lovers? Short film about Benjamin's artwork essay, 2011. Short film online , accessed on September 29, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter Benjamin in a letter to Alfred Cohn in October 1935; in: Walter Benjamin: Gesammelte Briefe , Volume V, Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 184.
2. ^ ^{A b} Willem van Reijen and Herman van Doorn: Stays and Passages. Life and work of Walter Benjamin. A chronicle. Pp. 155-161.
3. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Benjamin's media aesthetics. In: Walter Benjamin: Media aesthetic writings. Pp. 411-421.
4. ↑ For the editions of the last authorized version, also known as the “Third Version”, see editorial history and literature .
5. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 135.
6. ↑ Paul Valéry: La conquete de l'UBIQUITE. In: Pièces sur l'art. Gallimard, Paris without a year (1934), p. 104.
7. ^ ^{A b} Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. German version 1939, in: ders., Gesammelte Schriften. Volume I, Frankfurt am Main 1980, p. 473, available online as a PDF file from ominiverdi.org ( memento of the original from November 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 16, 2010. 
8. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 475.
9. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 477.
10. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 479.
11. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 484.
12. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 488.
13. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 505.
14. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 506.
15. ^ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: Il Poema Africano Della Divisione "28 Ottobre". Milan 1937. Benjamin quoted, according to his own statements, from a preprint of the text in October 1935 in the Turin newspaper La Stampa .
16. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 508.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 211 ff.
18. ^ Walter Benjamin: Fragments of mixed content. Autobiographical Writings (1930); in: the same: Collected writings. Volume VI, Frankfurt am Main 1985, p. 588.
19. ↑ Walter Benjamin: Small history of photography (1931); in the same: Collected Writings. Volume II, Frankfurt am Main, 1977, p. 378.
20. ↑ Walter Benjamin: Small history of photography (1931), p. 379.
21. ^ Walter Benjamin: About some motifs in Baudelaire (1939); in: the same: Collected writings. Volume I, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 646.
22. ^ Walter Benjamin: The passage work. In: the same: Collected Writings. Volume V, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 560 (M 16 a, 4)
23. ↑ Walter Benjamin: Small history of photography (1931), p. 93.
24. ^ ^{A b} Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 502.
25. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 182.
26. ↑ Walter Benjamin: About language in general and about human language. (1916); in: the same: Collected writings. Volume II, Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 142.
27. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 478.
28. ↑ ^{a b} Uwe C. Steiner: “A successful presumption?” - The aura of reproduction and the religion of the medial in Walter Benjamin and Patrick Roth ; published by the International Walter Benjamin Society ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 113 kB), accessed on August 30, 2010. 
29. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1939), p. 499.
30. ^ Siegfried Kracauer: Small writings on the film. Edited by Inka Mülder-Bach and Ingrid Belke, (Volume 6 of the works ) Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004.
31. ^ László Moholy-Nagy: Painting, Photography, Film. Munich 1925, reprint Mainz, Berlin 1967.
32. ^ Rudolf Arnheim: Film als Kunst (1932), new edition with an afterword by Karl Prümm and contemporary reviews, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 2002.
33. ↑ Walter Benjamin: About the concept of history. In: the same, Collected Writings. Volume I / 2, Frankfurt am Main 1972.
34. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 108.
35. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 109.
36. ↑ See on this and in the following also: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 118 f.
37. ^ Walter Benjamin: Collected writings. Volume I, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 431-469.
38. ^ Walter Benjamin: Collected writings. Volume VII, Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 350-384.
39. ^ Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , 5th year 1936, issue 1, pp. 40–68; Walter Benjamin: Collected Writings. , Volume I, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 709-739.
40. ^ Walter Benjamin: Collected writings. Volume I, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 471-508.
41. ^ Bernhard Reich to Walter Benjamin, letter of February 19, 1936, quoted from: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 57.
42. ↑ Willi Bredel to Walter Benjamin, letter of March 28, 1937, quoted from: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 92.
43. ↑ Erdmut Wizisla: Benjamin and Brecht. The story of a friendship. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-518-39954-3 , p. 250.
44. ^ Walter Benjamin to Max Horkheimer, letter of February 27, 1936, quoted from: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 61.
45. ^ Walter Benjamin to Max Horkheimer, letter of February 29, 1936, quoted from: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 63 ff. (Emphasis in original)
46. ↑ Max Horkheimer to Walter Benjamin, letter of March 18, 1936, quoted from: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 129 f.
47. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 61.
48. ↑ Walter Benjamin to Gretel Adorno, letter of March 26, 1939, in: Walter Benjamin and Gretel Adorno, Briefwechsel 1930–1940, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 364.
49. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Höflich: Walter Benjamin's text "The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility" and its significance for aesthetic theory. Berlin 2000, available online , accessed on August 29, 2010.
50. ↑ Leonardo da Vinci: Frammenti letterarii e filosofici. quoted from Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. German version 1939.
51. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1935), p. 439.
52. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1935), p. 453.
53. ^ Walter Benjamin: The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility (1935), p. 462.
54. ^ Rainer Maria Rilke: Walk , in: Last poems and fragmentary things ( full text on textlog.de ).
55. ↑ Stéphane Mallarmé: Un Coup de dés , available online at Wikisource , accessed on August 30, 2010.
56. ↑ Walter Benjamin: Traumkitsch. In: Collected Writings. Volume II / 2, p. 620.
57. ^ Paul Valéry: La conquête de l'ubiquité. ( PDF file ), accessed August 30, 2010.
58. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 157.
59. ^ ^{A b} Walter Benjamin to Alfred Cohn, letter of Jul 4, 1936, quoted from: Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 86.
60. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: About jazz. In: The same: Musical writings: Moments musicaux. Impromptus. Volume IV (Volume 17 of the collected writings), Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-29317-6 , p. 80; First publication under the pseudonym Hektor Rottweiler in: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. Volume 5, 1936, pp. 235–259.
61. ↑ ^{a b c} Theodor W. Adorno to Walter Benjamin, letter of March 18, 1936; in: Theodor W. Adorno / Walter Benjamin: Correspondence 1928–1940. 2nd Edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1995, pp. 169-172.
62. ^ Theodor W. Adorno to Max Horkheimer, letter of March 18, 1936; in: Theodor W. Adorno / Max Horkheimer: Correspondence, Volume I: 1927–1937 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 131.
63. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Dissonances. Introduction to the sociology of music. (Volume 14 of the collected writings), Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-29314-1 , p. 10.
64. ^ Max Horkheimer: Art and Mass Culture. In: Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. Volume IX, 1941, issue 2
65. ↑ Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer: Dialectic of the Enlightenment. Philosophical Fragments. In: Gunzelin, Schmid, Noerr (ed.): Collected writings. Volume 5: Dialectics of the Enlightenment and Writings 1940–1950 , Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1987.
66. ↑ Detlev Schöttker: Walter Benjamin. The work of art in the age of its technical reproducibility. Comment. P. 164.
67. ^ Walter Benjamin to Albert Cohn, letter of August 10, 1936; in: Walter Benjamin: Gesammelte Briefe , Volume V, p. 349.
68. ↑ Erdmut Wizisla: Benjamin and Brecht. The story of a friendship. P. 251 f.
69. ^ Bertolt Brecht to Mordecai (Max) Gorelik, letter at the beginning of March 1937, in: Bertolt Brecht: Werke. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 2000, Volume 29, p. 18 - Letter No. 754
70. ^ Bertolt Brecht: Arbeitsjournal. edited by Werner Hecht, 2 volumes, Frankfurt am Main 1974, volume 1, p. 14.
71. ^ Günter Hartung: On the Benjamin Edition - Part II ; in Weimar Contributions, 36th year, Berlin / Weimar 1990, p. 981.
72. ↑ Gershom Scholem: Walter Benjamin (1965), in: ders. Walter Benjamin and his angel. Fourteen essays and small contributions. published by Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 24 f.
73. ↑ Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Construction kit for a theory of the media. In: Kursbuch 20, 1970; and so: Palaver. Political Considerations (1967–1973). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 119.
74. ↑ Christoph Hesse: Critical Theory and Cinema. Benjamin and Adorno on art and the culture industry. Lecture from May 8, 2007; also as a PDF file , accessed on July 19, 2010.
75. ↑ Reinhard Markner: Benjamin after modernity. Something about the question of its topicality in view of the reception since 1983. In: Schattenlinien (Berlin) No. 8–9, 1994, pp. 37–47. ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 28, 2010. 
76. ↑ Jonathan Crary: Techniques of the Viewer. Seeing and modernity in the 19th century. Dresden 1996, p. 30 f.