Value-Shmalue

Marisa Olsen disagrees with Walter Benjamin's assessment that photography(and other similar media) take away "auratic value" from artwork, and she puts forth a wonderful argument filled with wonderful artists. She makes mention of the SCP, who perform to city cameras, as saying that their audience, while directed at the cameras on the streets of New York, changes to the audience that pass by on the street. It's auratic value comes from people's reactions and seeing on the video that is was done in public with people around. It is even displayed in museum settings from the viewpoint of onlookers using recording devices.

Auratic value, in my opinion, is going to occur with any physical object, or even a digital or projected image. Everything you look at elicits a reaction, no matter it's impact. A photograph has a different aura than a painting, but it still has one of it's own. Cindy Sherman's photographs conger feelings even without brush strokes... Just as 'The Scream' by Edward Munch makes people uneasy, a film like Dali's "Un chien andalou" makes people just as uneasy(if not more) when they cut open an eyeball. There is still a sense of physicality in both, still a sense of humanity.

Does Ken Goldberg's machine at the award show not hold any auratic value to the people on the computers? They see their actions being played out... they are part of the experience. They may not experience in the same way as the people at the show, but are definitely a part of the experience on a whole.

Digital media, as well as painted media, contains an aura. It may not have the smell of dried paint... but it does have the hiss of the computer fan, or even the glow of the screen(if that metaphor makes any sense). The same can be said for photography... while it may not have a defining characteristic such as dried paint or glowing, it has its own characteristics which create its own aura.

It seems a little ridiculous to say that something like Cindy Sherman's photo series have no auratic value just because of their ability to be reproduced. Isn't Cindy Sherman dressing up as different feminine roles in itself a ritual? Isn't setting up a still life of fruit in order to take a picture of it transform the fruit into something more than they are? The action of taking a snapshot may not be as intensive as painting, but it seems to me to be just as ritualized, which creates its own aura.

James