Walter Benjamin (1936)

The Work of Art in theAge of MechanicalReproduction

Source:

UCLA School of Theater,Film and Television;

Transcribed:

byAndy Blunden1998; proofed andcorrected Feb. 2005.

“Our fine arts weredeveloped, their types anduses were established, intimes very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things wasinsignificant in comparisonwith ours. But the amazinggrowth of our techniques, theadaptability and precisionthey have attained, the ideasand habits they are creating,make it a certainty that profound changes areimpending in the ancient craftof the Beautiful. In all the artsthere is a physical component

which can no longer beconsidered or treated as itused to be, which cannotremain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twentyyears neither matter nor spacenor time has been what it wasfrom time immemorial. Wemust expect great innovationsto transform the entiretechnique of the arts, therebyaffecting artistic inventionitself and perhaps even bringing about an amazingchange in our very notion of art.” Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931 Le Conquete del’ubiquite

Preface

When Marx undertook his critique of thecapitalistic mode of production, this modewas in its infancy. Marx directed his efforts insuch a way as to give them prognostic value.He went back to the basic conditionsunderlying capitalistic production andthrough his presentation showed what could be expected of capitalism in the future. Theresult was that one could expect it not only to

exploit the proletariat with increasingintensity, but ultimately to create conditionswhich would make it possible to abolishcapitalism itself.The transformation of the superstructure,which takes place far more slowly than that of the substructure, has taken more than half acentury to manifest in all areas of culture thechange in the conditions of production. Onlytoday can it be indicated what form this hastaken. Certain prognostic requirements should be met by these statements. However, thesesabout the art of the proletariat after itsassumption of power or about the art of aclassless society would have less bearing onthese demands than theses about thedevelopmental tendencies of art under presentconditions of production. Their dialectic is noless noticeable in the superstructure than inthe economy. It would therefore be wrong tounderestimate the value of such theses as aweapon. They brush aside a number of outmoded concepts, such as creativity andgenius, eternal value and mystery – conceptswhose uncontrolled (and at present almostuncontrollable) application would lead to a