The Mystery of ‘Aura’

On the issue of aura, in some ways I disagree that mechanical reproduction removes the aura away from a piece of art. Prof. Parry shared with us the story about the print of Guernica hanging in the UN’s Security Council room in New York City. The UN version is a tapestry copy, a replication “less monochromatic” than the original, with shades of brown. Being covered up during a speech for war increases the credibility of the meaning of the painting. It’s supposed to show the horrors of war and thus it has become a symbol of peace. The incident speaks to the power of art, and the abstraction of reality as an artform and a political message.

And that wasn’t the original. That was a mechanical reproduction, yet still as powerful as the original, at least in that context. I think a well-placed copy, in the right context, and for the right reasons can still maintain an aura about the art. That’s not to say that I think that there should be mass-copies of every important artwork out there (oh wait there is a lot already). Greeting card- and magnet-reproductions of a famous painting do little to further the aura of that work.

Benjamin’s use of aura refers to the awe someone feels towards an art, and to the authenticity of an art -- since film and photography manipulate their subjects, film especially through cutting and montage, the aura of seeing the image-event is lost. I feel like he argues that the aura is lost in reproduction, whereas I see it as reproduction creates a different kind of aura. I think the aura of actually being at an event versus seeing a photo of the event are very different in the feelings and amount of awe that you feel when seeing them.

There still exists an aura when seeing the image-reproduction of an event, however the aura of an image is limited in it’s ability to show the big picture or context of an event. As with Eddie Adams’ famous photo (I again use an example that Parry referenced mainly because it illustrates my point so precisely) of General Leon executing a Viet Cong prisoner. After the aftershock of his most famous photo, Adams felt that the photo was an incomplete story and didn’t explain that the General was shooting out of revenge:

"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'" (see article here)

The ability of film to stretch the truth and take events out of context could arguably be greater than that of the photo. In some ways, it is better than the photo because it can show the before and after, as with the Adams’ photo. In other ways however, through cutting and editing, a film can create a montage of images that tell a different story than perhaps what was real. A good example being by the brilliant director Alfred Hitchcock. In his 1960 film, Psycho, he uses the technology of montage to create his famous shower-murder scene. At the time, production codes limited director’s use of “violence” and “gore” (can you imagine what that scene would look like if made in 2009 by a director like, say, Quentin Tarantino?). Yet there is still a violent nature to that scene as Janet Leigh’s character is stabbed a dozen times in the shower. If you were to break down the scene into each cut however, each short cut by itself would not look very violent. (I unfortunately could not find a good set of screenshots from that scene online to show you) It’s only when the cuts are placed in a certain order, in a montage, that the violence is created, thus exemplifying the ability of film to create an aura out of a series of images. It's a horrific scene; even by our standards of violence I think that scene still frightens the viewer.

The aura of the event and the aura of the image, or series of images like in a montage, are very different. I see the reproduction of an event as creating a different aura than the event by removing it from its context and manipulating the viewer’s perspective. Film and photography illustrate this well, but mechanized copies of a painting, like Guernica, can show that in certain cases an aura can be maintained.