In the following exercises, you are invited to reflect on Benjamin's analysis of the role of reproducability in our conception of the artwork.
Choose a (historical or contemporary) artwork, (ritualistic) practice, or (technological) artefact. E.g. a painting of course, but you could also think about a religious object, a photograph, a festival or a concert.
Think about three moments where this artefact existed. If we take a festival as an example, we have the moment when the festival took place, your own personal memory of it (aided and abetted by the photos on your phone), and the newsitem that was made of the festival.
Now reflect on these moments: how did these transformation change the artefact and your appreciation of it. Did you like the festival itself better after seeing the formal registration of it on the news?
At what moment is the artefact in its most unique form? And when is it at its most distant?
As we have seen, Benjamin analysed how mechanical reproduction changes the status of artworks. Today, many cultural forms no longer merely circulate – they mutate, replicate, and reappear through algorithmic systems of selection and recombination.
Choose a contemporary cultural phenomenon that spreads or evolves through digital circulation. Think about memes, social media trends or challenges, or things that went viral.
Can you describe where this phenomenon originated, how it changed in different contexts and over time (if at all), and whether it disappeared (and perhaps re-appeared)? You can use screenshots or references to make this clear.
What do you think actually drove this phenomenon? It this still the 'mechanical reproduction' that Benjamin described, or is it something else? Who in this case it the author of the different versions of the phenomenon?
In Benjamin's analysis he concludes that the concept of artwork changes when it is made in order to be reproduced and to be seen; that its production is more focussed on the exhibition-value.
In this exercise we are going to investigate in what way this statement holds true for contemporary individualism as performance.
Find a short video where someone presents themselves (those kinds of video's should be easy to come by). Watch this video twice. In the first view, focus on the content, on what is being presented. In your second view, focus on the contruction, on how it is presented. Document your findings in one way or another.
Now reflect on the question whether the technological (re)producability of the self-image has changed the notion of self. Is there still a personal interior, of has the self become a design-question?
Nowadays, perception is increasingly shaped by platform-based flows of images, videos, and information. In this exercise we are going to compare two forms of perception.
Visit a museum physically, or use an online museum collection if necessary. Find an artwork that catches your attention and try to formulate why that is. Next, describe the way you approach the piece, how it is presented, what surrounds it etc.
Next scroll on an online platform (tiktok, youtube shorts, instagram, ...) for five minutes straight. Do not choose the content deliberately, but let the algorithm work for you.
After that, think about one video that caught your attention. Describe why that is and what surrounded it (what came before and what came after the video).
Reflect on the difference between encountering something that is placed before you (in the museum) and something that arrives at you (in the feed). Does the "aura" of an artwork survive differently in a museum than in a feed?