Illuminations

Having gone to RIT undergraduate school for photography the question that was always surreptitiously behind every conversation was 'is photography art.' It was loudly pronounced that indeed it was, but there was always the outside critics that seemed to infuse doubt in many a teacher and student alike. This led to a kind of categorizing of what constituted 'Art' in the form of photography. It was largely elitist and revolved around certain newly traditional views on Art borrowed from the aesthetics from earlier in the century. To clarify this was 1975 and what was accepted as Art was a very romantic form of photography which echoed painting in a number of ways. There were many out there playing with sequencing and pushing the medium but this was just beginning. In reading Benjamin's work it immediately became relevant with his, "The primary question-whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art-was not raised. Soon the film theoreticians asked the same ill-considered question with regard to film. But the difficulties with photography caused traditional aesthetics were mere child's play as compared to those raised by the film." This concept of reproduction and the very nature of 'Art' and its de-ritualization is one that has exploded 1000 fold since his insights from this writing.

The notion of the 'aura' lessening with the reproductive process is at once eminently understandable but one I would like to bring up in conversation in class and study group. his take is a very romantic one and serves as a definition or descriptor for his argument, but could it be argued that there is an 'aura' that is created in film, video, etc. it is just a different construct. In picking the sequencing of shots isn't the artist building another kind of 'aura.' When he quotes Duhamel in regard to movies,"a pastime for helots, a diversion for the uneducated," he brings light to the comparison that one form may indeed be more valid than another. He works hard to illuminate that the very concept of 'Art' has changed but then falls back on a kind of romantic view and value judgement that habits are formed, much like Dewey last week, and I am left with a negative take on this particular illumination.