There are several ways to look at photography, as a tool for easy repetition, or as a unique art form, yet, I cannot help but merge these two together. A prominent theme in the texts read this week concentrates on the issue of reproducibility as destroying the intrinsically ‘unique’ aura of the image. Why must these assets be divided? Despite the fact photography allows an image to be replicated multiple times, it does not alter/detract from the subject of the photograph nor the impact on the viewer in any way. In ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Reproducibility’ by Walter Benjamin he writes that ‘the most powerful agent of reproducibility is film. The social significance of film, even-and especially-in its most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic side’ In this quote I want to concentrate on those last two words, destruction and catharsis, so harshly juxtaposed, yet in essence very much alike. The purging, releasing ‘cathartic’ effect is almost in itself destructive, but the destruction is necessary as it allows cleansing and provides relief. Within the same essay Benjamin also says that ‘film is the first art form whose artistic character is entirely determined by its reproducibility.’ From this we can go as far as to make the conclusion that it is exactly that very aspect that makes photography, photography, a method of recording that absolves human talent of one’s hands, and instead focuses completely on the eye and the eye’s subject of choice to be photographed. Within the essay I believe one of the most apt captions is that of ‘the painter is a surgeon, but the photographer is a magician.’
Mass culture would be unthinkable without the tool of reproduction within photography and film. In‘ The Hidden Dialectic: Avantgarde-Technology-Mass Culture’ Huyssen writes how mass culture and its socio-political context ‘is unthinkable without 20th century technology, which made art productive in the transformation of everyday life.’ What can be argued as the ‘uniqueness’ of film is its ability to ‘close the gap separating art from reality.’ The beauty of that is, the image is of reality, yet in itself is art as well. This can be applied to the subject then of the early photographer Atget who around 1900 took photographs of deserted Paris streets. Much like the images of Detriot on ‘my courses’ there is a certain unique and somewhat disturbing aura attached to the images, despite the fact they are reproduced. The setting, the context and the overall special quality of both cities undeniably individual. As I researched Atget’s work online, I even found a flickr account of a man who had re-photographed the Paris images in 1994. Despite the fact the photographs were in a sense, a replica of a replica, they retained a ghostly sensation of mirrored space and time, placed against one another. In this way, reproducibility heightens the art, and evolves with it.
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