Life Datas

If art can be a set of relations, what happens to those relations when they become data as in the case of digital video? What distinguishes digital media from analog media embodies the notion of data.
Walter Benjamin grew up in a time characterized by historical narrative and analog technology. Every story has a beginning, middle and end. Benjamin died in 1940. He was a man before his time. His writings and theories still inform new media/digital media studies. 

If we think of a work of art in its cult value and exhibition value, the relationship between these two is changing with the improving process of mechanical reproduction. 
Digital video is one good example. Compared to traditional analog media, which makes recording linear and literally, digital video is an electronic medium that is the simultaneity of recording and reproduction. The way the electronic signals are processed and transformed alternately into audio and video is full of possibilities. It is no necessary to be linear and literal, or in other words, relays on facts. Digital video, as “transformation imagery”, distinguished itself by the fact that the transitions between images is “central and, even more so, that these transitions are always explicitly reflected and tested in new process”. For example, we can put multiple shots in just one frame with hundreds of different sounds editing options. Therefore, this transformation imagery means flexible, unstable, changing-forever forms of images.

Since the massive mechanical reproduction challenged the notion of aura and the “pure” essence of the work of art, Benjamin responded a little negatively toward this trend in his article. That’s because in any period of time in human history, media imagery influence people’s understandings toward this world in a great way. 
However, the development of technology, like the modern digital video, released fine art practice from its cult permissions. Instead of recording what is the world looks like, modern art practice rarely works on the facts or the reality. That why Benjamin concerns about the future work of art because it may affect the perception of our own experience of reality. And that kind of media imagery can easily controlled by government. 


Benjamin grew up in a time characterized by historical narrative, and he killed himself in 1940. Considering about Benjamin’s living time, I think his concern may come from his bad memories about Nazis. However, Benjamin’s theory of aura is very related to contemporary world of art. The changing relationship between cult value and exhibition value of a work of art is still worth concerns in today’s fine art practice.

From Stage to Camera

Consider how an actor might perceive the value of his work in a film or video environment as opposed to live stage. A personalized experience?  A unique performance?  How does the actor estimates his relationship to the not present audience, when playing only to other actors, the simulated environment of the sound stage, mechanical devices that record the performance and the, technicians necessary to the apparatus?  How do these mediated spaces affect the perception of our own experience of reality?

Compared to a live performer on a stage, the screen actor, which is presented by a camera, has many different things need to notice when he perceive the value of his work in a film or a video.

First of all, instead of facing live audience, or say real people, a screen actor is performing in front of a camera lens. Despite the first strangeness or weirdness facing the camera, the “film actor lacks the opportunity of the stage actor to adjust to the audience during his performance”. However, the screen actor is facing the real public eventually, so he has to response to real human emotions when he’s doing performance. On the hand, the extant of “acting” is kind of tricky in contemporary film criteria, since in today’s film industry “the greatest effects are almost always obtained by acting as little as possible”.

Secondly, compared of doing a linear and continued performance on stage, a screen actor’s work can be several separated shootings that may take hours inside a studio, which provides various lighting conditions and fancy effects. Now in a film or a video, what audiences see are the reflected images that become separable and transportable.

Another thing that is very different from doing live performance is that “the camera that presents the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole”. Compared with a stage actor that has fully control of his body and play, the imagery or performance of a screen actor is controlled by cameraman. By giving a different camera position and another angle, a film actor can be manipulated by a certain expressing reason. So besides thinking about how to estimate his relationship to the not present audience when playing, the screen actor also need to response to the cameramen, to other actors, to the simulated environment, as well as to the mechanical devices that record the performance.

Moreover, with the improving mechanical reproducibility and other fancy techniques, it is very easy for modern cameras to capture the smallest facial movements or little noise made by the screen actor or other objects in a film or a video. The mediated images about time and spaces definitely affect the perception of our own experience of reality. “By close-up of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the other hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action”. Therefore, a screen actor must be aware of that capacity brought by modern technology and make adjustments to that. “Hence, the performance of the actor is subjected to a series of optical tests”.

Reproductivity of Art

How does the ability to mechanically reproduce a medium change the idea what constitutes art is a crucial issue in art making these days.  When talking about new forms of art creation or new features of art regime, how does reproducibility create a system of relations that differs from that of a one-of-a-kind object must be concerned.  

In principle, I agree with Benjamin’s argument that “a work of art has always been reproducible”. From script to print, graphics to lithography, and finally to the technique of photography and film, mechanical reproduction of a work of art can always represent something new in human history. The improvements in mechanical reproducibility of artwork, in Benjamin’s mind, may damage the “aura” of a work of art; however in my opinion, the increasing reproducibility sometimes brings more possibilities to human’s art practice.

In this essay, Benjamin established his theory of aura, which means the “here and now” of a work of art. Aura is always tied with unique historical circumstances. However, massive reproduction brings human’s concerns about the authenticity of a work of art.  Since the most perfect reproduction of an art piece is lacking one important element: “its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be”. In other words, it lacks its aura. On the other hand, aura is alive and extremely changeable. The relationship between the two values of a work of art: its cult value and exhibition value will change in different auras. For instance, nowadays the exhibition value of an artwork becomes a creation with entirely new functions. Some photography artworks’ exhibition value begins to displace their cult value all along the line. That’s no wonder because contemporary masses always want to bring things “closer” and overcome the uniqueness of everything, even art, in the belief of “universal equality”. By accepting the mechanical reproduction, people start to “pry an object from its shall, to destroy its aura”.

I’m not sure if I agree with Benjamin on this point. Because aura is changeable, and may be the massive mechanical reproducibility is part of the aura of our time. Apparently the mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art. And that is how we embrace new formats of fine art practice. Relational art is a good example. With the mechanical reproducibility, everything can be art today. On the other hand, the mechanical reproduction released the work of art from its dependence on its ritual basis. Relational aesthetics projects just “break with the traditional physical and social space of the art gallery and the sequestered artist studio or atelier”. Relational aesthetics takes as its subject the entirety of life as it is lived, or the dynamic social environment, rather than attempting mimetic representation of object removed from daily life; or say the exhibition value exceeds the cult value of a work of art in this new possibility brought by mechanical reproduction.