"Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and Contemporary Digital Media

Walter Benjamin believed in the existence of an 'aura' which represented authenticity. He perceived photography and similar practices to be replicating original art forms, thus lacking authentic value. These ideas are still applicable when analysing contemporary digital media. Common forms of art in today's society that Walter Benjamin may consider reproductions of art, thus lacking an 'aura', include film, television and music. Music, recorded in a studio, could be portrayed as less authentic than if it was played live, according to the ideas proposed by Walter Benjamin. For purposes of further applying Benjamin's ideas to contemporary digital media, let's appreciate human beings and communication as forms of art. Benjamin would consider people to have an 'aura'. In the situation of a conversation between two people communicating via the internet using web-cams, this could be considered a violation of authenticity and a replication or reproduction of art, as according to Benjamin, digital things do not have an 'aura'. They are not genuine forms of art.

There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Today, it is possible for practically anybody to digitally produce a variety of things and present them as art forms. It can therefore be said that there are two types of "Art": Authentic and non-authentic; original and reproduced; real and fake. From the ideas taken from Benjamin's article, digital technology should be the barrier which distinguishes an authentic piece of art from a non-authentic piece of art. Thus literally any form of photography, film, recorded sound, or digital editing (e.g. photoshop) should be considered as non-authentic art. To deny the existence of art in it's non-authentic form would be impossible, as society's progression and revolution of digital media and technology is ever increasing and it's products being named as works of "Art". To extend on Benjamin's ideas, it is therefore imperative to distinguish between the two types of art.