Aura of Art

What does it mean in the 21st century?

Eighty years later since it published, Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” continues to inspire us today to explore the intrinsic relationship between technology and art appreciation. Written in 1936 when only conventional art, such as paintings and sculpture, was considered as “legit” art forms, the essay highlights a few influential concepts, such as the “contemporary decay” of aura caused by the reproducibility of art. Yet, with so many new art forms emerging in recent decades, where does aura stand in art appreciation? Can we redefine “aura” that is more applicable in our time?

Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, Benjamin claims, lacks “its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” Today, this concept is apparently relevant to the art market, where aura grows with the uniqueness and authenticity, and so does the price. In 2015, an original painting of Picasso was auctioned off at a record of $179.3 million dollars, while the very same copy of image, lacking its “aura”, can also be found in a museum gift shop for $50 dollars, or even for free online.

How much “aura” costs would need a separate discussion, but how much is “aura” still relevant today when art is ubiquitous and with a blurred definition? For example, some digital immersive art, which rely on virtual reality technology or other devices to deliver, requires the audience‘s participation in order to “complete” the work. Its “outcome” is entirely subject to the response of the individual viewer towards the work of art. While its digital nature makes it highly reproducible, each experience is unique. There is no single “aura” for viewer to pursue, yet each viewer can create the “aura” by interacting with the work.

Benjamin may have described it right: “in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced.” Despite Benjamin’s prediction that aura would disappear with technology intervention, it is interesting to explore and redefine the new “aura” of our time. Perhaps the uniqueness of art viewing and participatory experience, sometimes enabled by technology, can constitute the redefinition of “aura”.