Category: Weekly Response

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Jessica Colasacco (Week 5)

This week, I decided to focus on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. As someone who appreciates art, this article really caused me to think about authenticity of art. One of my favorite things is going to the Brooklyn Museum or MOMA and looking at a real Moet painting. But I also am a huge Andy Warhol fan, which made me question if I could truly appreciate the authenticity of art if I supported an artist who replicated art for a living. In this article, Benjamin states, “Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain”. If this was applied to Warhol, would that mean he was just using his art work in pursuit of gain instead of as a mean of expressing himself? Personally, I believe that his artwork was a way of expressing himself in a specific culture that allowed his work to be successful, but that is my own opinion and other people can think differently than I.

Sources:

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 1936.

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Walter Benjamin // Miranda Pacheco (Week 5)

Walter Benjamin in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” introduces the concept of authenticity. He speaks about an individuals desire to see the authentic nature of a piece of work then explains how reproduction has its own part in recreating this nature. Benjamin states, “the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced” (Benjamin 4). When done correctly art that is reproduced is still able to tell the story of its beginning, its formation, and its place in history. I find this concept fascinating because I unintentionally look for the authentic nature in things all the time. I find art more credible when it’s attached to its origin story, even when its not exact to its original I appreciate the uniqueness of a replicated piece.

Explained in the reading authenticity of art is based on “ritual” (Benjamin 6), as Benjamin circles back to mechanical reproduction he points out that works of art are no longer dependent on rituals just mass production. This is important to note because now authenticity is viewed differently. In this day in age many people desire quantity and numbers, opposed to the process a piece went through in reproduction. One is not greater then the other,  it’s a matter of preference and culture. In present day I, along with many others benefit from mechanical production with everything that’s being mass produced. This doesn’t change my enjoyment of art before mechanical reproduction. I’ve always found value in the one and even when reproduced the uniqueness is still present. One of my favorite examples is the architecture in Europe. So many buildings, with such rich history and even when buildings were recreated they still had a consistency  with its origin.

CITE:

Benjamin, Walter.  “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” from Illuminations. New York, Schocken Books, 1968.

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Isaac Espinoza Blog Post 5

For this week I’ve decided to reflect on “Media, Technology, and society” by Brian Winston. Throughout the reading, Winston drives home the point that Western Civilization has not undergone this “information revolution”, but instead has slowly evolved into what it is today. He argues that our society did not change all at once when it comes to communication and technology but rather continuously and will continue to do so. Many people are blinded by the “storm” that is progress and tend to focus on the result rather than the process. We are so in awe of what we have accomplished that we forget how we even accomplished that in the first place. Take the current state of the cell phone for example. The cell phone has become a pocket computer in many ways. It allows us to communicate in ways we could have only dreamt of 10 years ago. It was only through continuous progress and innovation that we arrived at the cell phone that most of us have today.

Works Citied
Winston, B. (2006). Media Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet. London: Routledge.

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Carolyn Pena Blog Post Week #5

In this week’s blog post, I decided to write about “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. On page 3, Walter Benjamin wrote: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be … This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership”. I like this quote a lot because I feel like this fails to cross a lot of peoples minds. We all know that art is unique and historical but what we don’t really think about is how it got where it is now. When we go to a museum, we are surrounded by so many pieces of art and right next to it will be a brief description of the piece of art. All of those pieces of art all ended up in the same museum but where were they before that? I also consider communication as a sense of art and the variety of changes there has been to communication throughout the years. This makes me think about the process of communication and how it ended up where it is now.

 

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936. German philosopher Benjamin’s aura

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Marisa Brincat’s Post for 10/1/18

“Users of the Internet represent themselves within it solely through the medium of keystrokes and mouse-clicks, and through this medium they can describe themselves and their physical bodies any way they like; they perform their bodies as text. On the Internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog; it is possible to “computer crossdress” (Stone 84)” (Nakamura 1)

This quote really stood out to me because it made me come to the realization that people really are able to disguise themselves or in essence “be whoever they want” over the internet. The computer can be used as an escape but it can also be dangerous when it comes to those who “computer crossdress”. There have been instances where people who have dangerous intentions hide behind their computer or phones to lure others into a harmful trap. I know it is inevitable when it comes to the internet that people are able to disguise themselves, but there are ways to avoid falling into a “computer cross dresser’s” trap such as staying off of dating sites, or talking to strangers through the internet.

Source: Stone, Allucquere Rosanne. “Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.

 

 

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Clary, Week #6 Blog Post, 10/1

This weeks blog post I chose to to write it on Lisa Nakamura’s peice,“Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet”. Throughout this reading, Nakamura touches on several aspects of role playing sites on the internet such as LambdaMOO and focuses on the problematic issue of race and stereotyping on these sites. However the quote that stood out to me the most is when she states “The technology of the Internet offers its participants unprecedented possibilities for communicating with each other in real time, and for controlling the conditions of their own self-representations in ways impossible in face to face interaction”(Nakamura 1). With that being said, the internet allows for various ways of communicating with one another. Sending an receiving messages only takes a few seconds, it’s instantaneous. The internet also allows for one to alter and present themselves as they please. This made me think of social media and how people depict themselves and “controlling the conditions” in which to display.

Refrences:

Nakaruma, Lisa,“Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet” in Works and Days, Volume 13, 181-193, 1995

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Week 5: Yvonne Empire and Communications

For this weeks post I chose H.A Innis “Empire and Communications” which examines the history of media and its impact. In this case the “media” refers to the earliest time of where papyrus was used and the alphabet of developing societies. “The effective government of large areas depends to be very important extent on the efficiency of tradition” (Innis, chp.3). Focusing on how media came from oral history, to the development of traditional writing to printing press. When discussing the alphabet, he talks about the relationship between those who are at the top of civilization and those who are the bottom. He argues that multiple gain of knowledge was developed at the top only to be challenged and overthrown by new ideas that take shape for those who are considered at the bottom.

Innis, H.A. “EMPIRE AND COMMUNICATIONS.” Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada, by J. Harold Putman, www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/innis-empire/innis-empire-00-h.html#III.

 

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Milagros’ Post for 10/2

This week I decided to reflect on “Race In/For Cyberspace reading. “Users define their presence within this textual and graphical space through a variety of different activities‹commercial interaction, academic research, netsurfing, real time interaction and chatting with interlocutors who are similarly “connected”…”(Nakamura,1) This quote really resonated with me because it made me think about social media such as Instagram and how we put our versions of ourselves at times that aren’t really who we are. “The technology of the Internet offers its participants unprecedented possibilities for communicating with each other in real time, and for controlling the conditions of their own self-representations in ways impossible in face to face interaction.” (Nakamura,1) This quote just explains how using social media or any type of cyber communication lets us in a way create ourselves how we want to be looked at and what we want to put out there. I think that the internet has changed the way we communicate with others even face to face because there are times where I see people together and they are all on their phones not really being able to communicate properly or confidently face to face. But this can also be harmful because if we solely go based off the internet and who we are as people on our social media, then at times we will only look for validation from our likes and not our real selves.

 

Work cited

  • Lisa Nakamura, “Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet” in Works and Days, Volume 13, 181-193, 1995.
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Michael Farias blog post 5 for October 1

For this weeks blog posts I chose “Race In/Fir Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet” by Lisa Nakamura. In her writing, Nakamura talks about this chat space online called LambdaMOO. This is where people play games and they give their characters names that the users make up. Users then design their characters by assigning a gender, but can only express race in character descriptions. She goes on to talk about how Asian characters in popular games such as “Mortal Combat” have very stereotypical Asian names and portrays Asian culture as just martial arts based. This is true about many other video games and movies. She also says that this gives off the idea to people from other races that Asian culture is just about the martial arts. This is something that really stuck out to me because it is true that the way a race is portrayed in things movies and video games, is the way that race is view upon by other races. What we see in movies and video games cannot portray or give us a full understanding about the culture of a particular race.

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Isaac Espinoza Blog Post 4

Elizabeth Eisenstein’s “Defining The Shift” focuses mostly on the transition from scribes to printing and the consequent effects this had in the many cultures of the world. Eisenstein says “an evolutionary model has been applied to a situation that seems to call for a revolutionary one. She believes the printing press caused a paradigm shift as it changed the way we approach, interact with, and perceive literature. For one it was the converging point for a diverse group of techniques skills and people. It also allowed literature to be produced at a much higher rate. I want to draw the parallel to social media and its similar effects. While the printing press allowed people to mass produce their work and make it available to a mass audience, social media allows us to post our personal pictures, information, opinions for a mass audience to consume. They both streamline the process of spreading information while creating a slew of new jobs, social interactions, opportunities, and problems.

Citation:

Elizabeth Eisenstein. “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture.” The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006.