Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 99.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2024-08-15 23:47:30+00:00
        From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.98: an exam question

I've always enjoyed Benjamin's essay, but I've read too much Adorno lately
to keep from asking, "What kind of a degenerate talks about the use
value of art?" Even reproduced, what use value does it have? I'd rather
discuss the artistic value of some useful objects, such as Estwing hammers,
which I've always thought had a certain sleek beauty, the Aston Martins of
hammers -- but then a beautiful car is also a useful object with artistic
value. I would also question the idea that, say, a great painting was
really being reproduced. A photograph of a painting isn't the painting, and
a photograph doesn't diminish the value of the original, not even today.
So, overall, I think Benjamin's essay is his communism running away with
him a bit much and generally nonsense, though I like his discussion of
artistic products in which the original has no real value: they're only
valuable when they are reproduced (such as a film or a recording). The
original print of the film may have some collector's value, but that's not
how the film really makes money, while an original Michelangelo is worth
more, probably, than all of the cheap prints combined, and the cheap prints
only have their value because of the original. I don't know that prints of
David would sell if the original didn't ever exist.

At the same time, in a DH context, one can't help but come back to
Benjamin's essay and reconsider it.

Jim R

On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 5:12 AM Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:

> Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, let me offer the following observation by
> Walter Benjamin as an exam question for an advanced seminar in digital
> humanities. This version comes from his "Little history of photography",
> in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and
> Other Writings on Media (Harvard UP, 2008, p .290:
>
> > "... one is brought up short by the way the understanding of great
> > works [of art] was transformed at about the same time the techniques
> > of reproduction were being developed. Such works can no longer be
> > regarded as the products of individuals; they have become a
> > collective creation, a corpus so vast it can be assimilated only
> > through miniaturization. In the final analysis, methods of mechanical
> > reproduction are a technique of diminution that helps people to
> > achieve a degree of mastery over works of art--mastery without which
> > the works could no longer be put to use."
> >
> > Discuss.
>
> Yours,
> WM


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