Walter Benjamin writes in a way I can't understand!!

How do the ideas from Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" apply to contemporary digital media?

- Now this is a tough one which I can't really get my head around properly, but I’m going to try anyway. Let’s talk about music. If you saw an artist preform live, and this was your favourite song of all times, would it be different to hear them live, than on a CD? It probably would because of the setting, lights, atmosphere and the joy you have because you managed to get tickets. You could say that the song loses its aura when it’s printed on a CD, but still you would enjoy the song, and you can hear it as many times as you want to.

So, if I understand Walter Benjamin correctly, I would say that the ideas apply for digital media as well, because “mechanical reproduction” brings art to a new level and it still do. It makes the audience come closer to the art, and they can draw out what they think or feel about the piece of art, wether it be a musical piece or a painting. I think Benjamin wants to tell us that mechanical reproduction makes art and media more liberal and are we not interested in having a free press and a free flow of art? Art is what the eye sees and the heart and mind feels and think, and no reproduction would ever take that away from what art means for the individual.

There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?

- It means art is more common and liberal. Everyone can express their feelings and thoughts on a piece of paper, on an image or on a video. People can make art that means something for one self and don’t think about what everyone else thinks about it, because it will probably not go out to the big audience. If it does, you might be lucky and earn money on it. But I think you can’t call yourself an artist though. Maybe more of an “expressor” of ones own feelings.

But isn’t that what art is all about? To express feelings and create something for someone else to enjoy? Hell yeah it is!!

Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?

- If we go by what Benjamin writes a photoshop picture wouldn’t be authentic. But if you edit something, makes something new out of something else, wouldn’t that be authentic or original?

I think so at least.

Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)?

- According to Benjamin, recreated things have lost its aura because the aura is in the original piece of art. But it sounds a bit old fashion and radical to think that way, because you will always get something out of the work of art, and you will always feel this ‘aura’ if you like the piece of art. I think it does have an aura; you just have to know what to look for and be connected with the piece to actually feel it.