II In even the most perfect reproduction, one thing is lacking: the here and now of the work of art—its unique existence in a particular place (397).
technological reproduction is more independent of the original than is manual reproduction. . . . it can bring out aspects of the original that are accessible only to the lens (398).
technological reproduction can place the copy of the original in situations which the original itself cannot attain (398).
The situations into which the product of technological reproduction can be brought may leave the artwork’s other properties untouched, but they certainly devalue the here and now of the artwork (398).
the technology of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the sphere of tradition. By replicating the work many times over, it substitutes a mass existence for a unique existence (398).
III We define the aura of [natural objects] as the unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be (399).
In light of this description, we can readily grasp the social basis of the aura’s present decay. . . . [1] the desire of the present-day masses to “get closer” to things spatially and humanly, and [2] their equally passionate concern for overcoming thing’s uniqueness . . . by assimilating it as a reproduction (399).
The stripping of the veil from the object, the destruction of the aura, is the signature of a perception whose “sense for sameness in the world” has so increased that, by means of reproduction, it extracts sameness even from what is unique (399).
Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing significance of statistics (399).
IV the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the source of its original use value (399).
for the first time in world history, technological reproducibility emancipates the work of art from its parasitic subservience to ritual (400).
But as soon as the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applied to artistic production, the whole social function of art is revolutionized. Instead of being founded on ritual, it is based on a different practice: politics (400).
V The reception of works of art varies in character, but in general two polar types stand out: one accentuates the artwork’s cult value; the other, its exhibition value (400).
With the emancipation of specific artistic practices from the service of ritual, the opportunities for exhibiting their products increase (400).
Just as the work of art in prehistoric times, through the absolute emphasis placed on its cult value, became first and foremost an instrument of magic which only later came to be recognized as a work of art, so today, through the absolute emphasis placed on its exhibition value, the work of art becomes a construct [Gebilde] with quite new functions (400).
VII commentators had earlier expended much fruitless ingenuity on the question of whether photography was an art—without asking the more fundamental question of whether the invention of photography had not transformed the entire character of art (401).
VIII The audience’s empathy with the actor is really an empathy with the camera. Consequently, the audience takes the position of the camera; its approach is that of testing. This is not an approach compatible with cult value (402).
IX The stage actor identifies himself with a role. The film actor very often is denied this opportunity (403).
X While he stands before the apparatus, the screen actor knows that in the end he is confronting the public, the consumers who constitute the market (404).
Film responds to the shrivelling of the aura by artificially building up the “personality” outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves that magic of the personality which has long been no more than the putrid magic of its own commodity character (404).
Any person today can lay claim to being filmed (404).
the distinction between author and public is about to lose its axiomatic character (404).
At any moment, the reader is ready to become a writer (404).
Literary competence is no longer founded on specialized higher education but on polytechnic training, and thus is common property (404).
XI The illusory nature of film is of the second degree; it is the result of editing (405).
In the film studio the apparatus has penetrated so deeply into reality that a pure view of that reality, free of the foreign body of equipment, is the result of a special procedure, namely, the shooting by the specially adjusted photographic device and the assembly of that shot with others of the same kind (405),
Magician is to surgeon as painter is to cinematographer (405).
the presentation of reality in film is incomparably the more significant for people of today, since it provides the equipment-free aspect of reality they are entitled to demand from a work of art and does so precisely on the basis of the most intensive interpenetration of reality with equipment (405).
XII The technological reproducibility of the artwork changes the relation of the masses to art (406).
The progressive reaction [to a film] is characterized by an immediate, intimate fusion of pleasure—pleasure in seeing and experiencing—with an attitude of expert appraisal (406).
With regard to the cinema, the critical and uncritical attitudes of the public coincide (406).
XIII Demonstrating that the artistic uses of photography are identical to its scientific uses . . . will be on of the revolutionary functions of film (407).
With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended (407).
It is through the camera that we first discover the optical unconscious, just as we discover the instinctual unconscious through psychoanalysis (407).
XIV Every fundamentally new, pioneering creation of demand will overshoot its target (408).
XV Distraction and concentration [Zerstreuung und Sammlung] form an antithesis, which may be formulated as follows. A person who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. . . . By contrast, the distracted masses absorb the work of art into themselves (409).
the human need for shelter is permanent. Architecture has never had fallow periods. Its history is longer than that of any other art (409).
Buildings are received in a twofold manner: by use and by perception. Or, better: tactilely and optically. . . . Tactile reception comes about not so much by way of attention as by way of habit. . . . the optical reception of architecture . . . takes the form casual noticing, rather than attentive observation (409).
Reception is distraction (409).
Epilogue The logical outcome of fascism is an aestheticizing of political life. . . . All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point. That one point is war (410).
Imperialist war is an uprising on the part of technology, which demands repayment in “human material” for the natural material society has denied it (410).
Humankind, which once, in Homer, was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, has not become one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached the point where it can experience its own annihilation as a supreme aesthetic pleasure (411).
Such is the aestheticizing of politics, as practiced by fascism. Communism replies by politicizing art (411).