Art in the Internet Age I: Technical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1935) is a prognostic essay, predicting the effect of (early twentieth-century) technology on art. It begins with an allusion to Marx who, Benjamin tells us, undertook his critique of capitalism while it was still in its infancy. Without waiting for the process to unfold, ‘Marx directed his efforts in such a way as to give them prognostic value. He went back to the basic conditions underlying capitalistic production and through his presentation showed what could be expected of capitalism in the future’.

Marx, as we know, predicted two things; that the working class would be exploited with ‘increasing intensity’, and that this exploitation will create conditions which will lead to the collapse of capitalism. As with most prognoses, Marx was both right and wrong. The system continues to exploit workers, but this has not yet led to revolution (at least not in the West).

Likewise, in his predictions concerning the work of art, Benjamin was both right and wrong. Let’s start with what he got right.