Artists: Christopher J. Fox, İpek Oruç, Jason J.S. Barton dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 | Color appearance: The limited role of chromatic surround variance in the "gamut expansion effect" Artists: Franz Faul, Vebjørn Ekrol, Gunnar Wendt dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 |
The spatiotemporal profile of cortical processing leading up to visual perception Artists: J. Fahrenfort, H. S. Scholte, V. A. F. Lamme dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 | Artists: Jeremy Freeman, Denis G. Pelli dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2007 |
A scale invariant measure of clutter Artists: Mary J. Bravo, Hany Farid dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 | If I saw it, it probably wasn't far from where I was looking Artists: Eli Brenner, Pascal Mamassian, Jeroen B. J. Smeets dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 |
Object features used by humans and monkeys to identify rotated shapes Artists: Kristina J. Nielsen, Nikos K. Logothetis, Gregor Rainer dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 | Disorganizing biological motion Artists: Amelia R. Hunt, Fred Halper dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 |
High-speed navigators: Using more than what meets the eye Artists: Francesca C. Fortenbaugh, John C. Hicks, Lei Hao, Kathleen A. Turano dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2006 | The effect of sildenafil citrate (Viagra®) on visual sensitivity Artists: Andrew Stockman, Lindsay T. Sharpe, Adnan Tufail, Philip D. Kell, Caterina Ripamonti, Glen Jeffery dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2007 |
Ultra-rapid categorization requires visual attention: Scenes with multiple foreground objects Artists: Sarah Walker, Paul Stafford, Greg Davis dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 | Perception of animacy and direction from local biological motion signals Artists: Dorita H. F. Chang Nikolaus F. Troje dimensions: 96x96 pixels medium: color LCD monitor date: 2008 |
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Lab report as literary reference: 12 selections from Journal of Vision
The table below is a curated art show consisting of 12 digital images published by Journal of Vision. They are all digital images that accompany a scientific article that describes a particular experiment designed to study vision. If you have a calibrated color computer monitor, preferably a flat screen LCD, then you are in optimal conditions to view this show. As such it is ideal for the internet. The show consists of a table of links in order to respect copyright. The title of the artwork corresponds to the title of the article. The authors of the article are listed as the artists. The link in the title will send you to the artwork. The link below the artists sends you to the article, for the sake of context. If you visit the Journal of Vision website, you’ll see many more examples of this kind of art.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Instrument flying
“A Conversation with Phillippe de Montebello + Eugene V. Thaw”
The Morgan Library + Museum April 16, 2009
I attended this event which featured a sharp and witty dialogue between Eugene V. Thaw and Phillippe de Montebello. Mr. Thaw began by asking if museums, especially the new ones that have opened in recent years are making art better understood. During the course of the conversation both men pointed out major criticisms and issues art museums face, especially problems with displaying art.
Mr. de Montebello repeated a particular point at least twice, which given the linear direction of the conversation stands out as significant. The point was that museums cannot allow casual handling of the objects by the public for obvious an unavoidable reasons and this restriction is not the best for looking at certain kinds of art.
I agree that this matters. When looking at paintings the problem is not obvious because the embodied part of looking at painting is positioning ourselves in front of it and there are few restrictions for movement at the museum. It is possible to get a good enough look at objects in vitrines such that holding them to see them may seem to be redundant. However, in my opinion the tactile part of vision, the haptics, the sensory motor skills, or whatever you want to call them, are so important that the limited viewing conditions of art under glass becomes palpable when looking at 3 dimensional objects.
I can think of two cases that show how irresistible touch can be. At the John Hay library at Brown University there is a large dark patina bronze bust of Mr. Hayes looking stern and 19th century. When I saw this bust circa 1994 the nose was polished to a high shine which is a sharp break with the tradition of bronze portraits. I hung around long enough to notice that every student who walked past would give Mr. Hayes’ nose a tweak. That explained the shine, but what about the students’ behavior? I asked around and was told that tweaking the nose was believed to bring good luck on tests. That reason is superstitious, but would the touching cease completely if there was no explicit promise of future reward?
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a program that allows visitors to touch certain objects and there is signage that alerts all visitors, though they do have a special program just for the blind. This program includes a small bronze portrait of Abraham Lincoln that I think is a study for the Memorial in D.C. The interesting thing about this piece is the shiny parts, evidence of where the sculpture is most frequently touched. It is the hands and feet. I don’t know of any superstition driving the preference for touching the hands and feet, but there is no question that if people are allowed to touch the sculpture they will.
Even though we can look right through glass it remains a barrier that prevents us from using all of the senses we might employ if given the opportunity. If your definition of seeing is restricted to the stimulation of the eyes then there may be no issue, but if you think of seeing as a full embodied process then clear glass becomes a veil.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
On hiding in plain sight
I attended this interesting presentation hosted by the New York Academy of Science.
At the start Apollo Robins worked his way through the auditorium in search of an item secretly handed to an audience member. I have a hunch that while he was looking for the hidden object he was also “interviewing” potential pickpocket marks. Apollo shook hands, nodded to people, called out greetings and so on and did not find the hidden item but he did take all sorts of other things like wallets, watches, and electronic gadgets without permission or protest. I think everyone he called up to stage later in the evening were people who passed his interview. Passing an interview usually means showing a certain lack of awareness and not coincidentely the limits of awareness was the theme of the evening.
Dr. Koch presented some experiments for us to try. The most numerous had something to do with change blindness. Change blindness is very interesting for many reasons. It is an important basis for an argument that denies the existence of some kind of “model” of the world constructed by our brains. The argument goes like this. There is no model of the world in the brain, and no mind’s eye to look at it either, and maybe little or no memory. How could there be if we literally cannot see what is in front of our face or remember most details of a scene? The world our bodies inhabit is the only point of reference and it also serves as our memory.
In any case change blindness reveals certain limits of our perception. My position is that vision is a skill that we begin to develop at a very early stage of life. If you recognize how limited vision is, then you’ll want to be as skillful as possible to see as much as possible. There are skills you can use when confronted by magic acts and change blindness tests. In the case of change blindness tests put your foveal vision slightly above the top center of the image frame and use use your vision outside the focal point to look at the image. In other words, your focal point is off the image completely and you won’t be able to see it very clearly. If you do this right you’ll pick up the change very quickly. The area outside your focal point is sensitive to value change and you can detect the change as a kind of motion or subtle blink, then move your focal point to the area to confirm. This is similar to noticing the movement in the corner of your eye made by a rodent on the street, which you immediately turn to focus on. Your focal point is so small that if you start with putting it somewhere in the middle of the image it will take a great deal of time to spot the change while you are laboring to move your tiny point of focus over the image in haphazard fashion. I think black and white images are easier because it is easier to detect the value change than color images. There is a blank white frame between each image and this looks like a blink and this is what makes the task difficult. Notice that this technique has nothing to do with a language based interpretation of the meaning of the image.
Here’s a scientific paper that claims to show in the lab what I am claiming here: that vision is a skill and with training you can reduce your change blindness reaction time.
My “Eccentric Vision Drawings” use the technique I’ve been describing. Thinking about change blindness experiments inspired this approach.
Apollo performed a fun act that involved a coin that seemed to appear and disappear in amazing ways. This is a popular act so chances are you have seen a version of it somewhere. First he showed us a coin with an audience member standing next to him on stage (an unaware mark, no doubt). Then began a monologue during which it seemed as though the coin was disappearing from both Apollo’s hands, only to appear behind the ear of the participant, then disappearing again, and so on. The vision skills needed for this are similar to the change blindness test but this is a much more difficult task. The tactics are almost opposite the change blindness test because at the beginning you see the coin and know where to look. For example, if your focal point is on the motionless fist that holds the coin, you’ll notice a great deal of movement in your peripheral vision and it takes a considerable amount of restrain from swinging your focal point in that direction and in so doing losing track of the coin. Then if that hand holding the coin does begin to move it will be very difficult to track the coin to its next resting place because it will intersect a flurry of movement and you’ll have to restrain yourself from sending your focal point on a ballistic trajectory to where the coin is not located. This exercise requires a very high and special kind of attention that is broader than normal and I felt fatigued by the end of it. I lost track of the coin several times, but sometimes I did know exactly where it was hidden. You have to be as alert as you can be and control your focal point and it takes practice. Words escape me here, you’ll have do it yourself. You can find Apollo in Las Vegas, I’m sure he’d love to pick your pocket if you let him.
I found it fatiguing to track the coin during Apollo’s act. I have noticed a similar kind of fatigue somewhere else: watching television. This may seem counter intuitive because television is supposed to be an escape from work. I have never owned a television. The visual stimulation characteristic of television is not something I expose myself to frequently. I have noticed that when watching television for the first time after a prolonged period of no television, the first few viewing moments are very intense because the motion and rapid cuts are exciting and I see a great deal. Then a certain kind of fatigue sets in that manifests itself as a difficulty concentrating, and I know I can’t see half of what is on the screen anymore, and this bothers me because the pace set by the television grinds on relentlessly. This exhaustion set in within 10 minutes or less. I prefer media that moves at a speed I can keep up with or allows me to set the pace. This also suggests how much energy it takes to really pay attention and why during our day to day moments the tendency is to not to look very hard because it can be a great deal of work.
The title of the program “see what you’ve been missing” is apt. The truth is that we don’t see a great deal of what is in front of us even when we think we’re paying attention.
At the start Apollo Robins worked his way through the auditorium in search of an item secretly handed to an audience member. I have a hunch that while he was looking for the hidden object he was also “interviewing” potential pickpocket marks. Apollo shook hands, nodded to people, called out greetings and so on and did not find the hidden item but he did take all sorts of other things like wallets, watches, and electronic gadgets without permission or protest. I think everyone he called up to stage later in the evening were people who passed his interview. Passing an interview usually means showing a certain lack of awareness and not coincidentely the limits of awareness was the theme of the evening.
Dr. Koch presented some experiments for us to try. The most numerous had something to do with change blindness. Change blindness is very interesting for many reasons. It is an important basis for an argument that denies the existence of some kind of “model” of the world constructed by our brains. The argument goes like this. There is no model of the world in the brain, and no mind’s eye to look at it either, and maybe little or no memory. How could there be if we literally cannot see what is in front of our face or remember most details of a scene? The world our bodies inhabit is the only point of reference and it also serves as our memory.
In any case change blindness reveals certain limits of our perception. My position is that vision is a skill that we begin to develop at a very early stage of life. If you recognize how limited vision is, then you’ll want to be as skillful as possible to see as much as possible. There are skills you can use when confronted by magic acts and change blindness tests. In the case of change blindness tests put your foveal vision slightly above the top center of the image frame and use use your vision outside the focal point to look at the image. In other words, your focal point is off the image completely and you won’t be able to see it very clearly. If you do this right you’ll pick up the change very quickly. The area outside your focal point is sensitive to value change and you can detect the change as a kind of motion or subtle blink, then move your focal point to the area to confirm. This is similar to noticing the movement in the corner of your eye made by a rodent on the street, which you immediately turn to focus on. Your focal point is so small that if you start with putting it somewhere in the middle of the image it will take a great deal of time to spot the change while you are laboring to move your tiny point of focus over the image in haphazard fashion. I think black and white images are easier because it is easier to detect the value change than color images. There is a blank white frame between each image and this looks like a blink and this is what makes the task difficult. Notice that this technique has nothing to do with a language based interpretation of the meaning of the image.
Here’s a scientific paper that claims to show in the lab what I am claiming here: that vision is a skill and with training you can reduce your change blindness reaction time.
My “Eccentric Vision Drawings” use the technique I’ve been describing. Thinking about change blindness experiments inspired this approach.
Apollo performed a fun act that involved a coin that seemed to appear and disappear in amazing ways. This is a popular act so chances are you have seen a version of it somewhere. First he showed us a coin with an audience member standing next to him on stage (an unaware mark, no doubt). Then began a monologue during which it seemed as though the coin was disappearing from both Apollo’s hands, only to appear behind the ear of the participant, then disappearing again, and so on. The vision skills needed for this are similar to the change blindness test but this is a much more difficult task. The tactics are almost opposite the change blindness test because at the beginning you see the coin and know where to look. For example, if your focal point is on the motionless fist that holds the coin, you’ll notice a great deal of movement in your peripheral vision and it takes a considerable amount of restrain from swinging your focal point in that direction and in so doing losing track of the coin. Then if that hand holding the coin does begin to move it will be very difficult to track the coin to its next resting place because it will intersect a flurry of movement and you’ll have to restrain yourself from sending your focal point on a ballistic trajectory to where the coin is not located. This exercise requires a very high and special kind of attention that is broader than normal and I felt fatigued by the end of it. I lost track of the coin several times, but sometimes I did know exactly where it was hidden. You have to be as alert as you can be and control your focal point and it takes practice. Words escape me here, you’ll have do it yourself. You can find Apollo in Las Vegas, I’m sure he’d love to pick your pocket if you let him.
I found it fatiguing to track the coin during Apollo’s act. I have noticed a similar kind of fatigue somewhere else: watching television. This may seem counter intuitive because television is supposed to be an escape from work. I have never owned a television. The visual stimulation characteristic of television is not something I expose myself to frequently. I have noticed that when watching television for the first time after a prolonged period of no television, the first few viewing moments are very intense because the motion and rapid cuts are exciting and I see a great deal. Then a certain kind of fatigue sets in that manifests itself as a difficulty concentrating, and I know I can’t see half of what is on the screen anymore, and this bothers me because the pace set by the television grinds on relentlessly. This exhaustion set in within 10 minutes or less. I prefer media that moves at a speed I can keep up with or allows me to set the pace. This also suggests how much energy it takes to really pay attention and why during our day to day moments the tendency is to not to look very hard because it can be a great deal of work.
The title of the program “see what you’ve been missing” is apt. The truth is that we don’t see a great deal of what is in front of us even when we think we’re paying attention.
Monday, October 13, 2008
“Authentic Geneologist” addendum
See my May 22nd post about an artwork I discovered on the 23rd St. 8th Ave. subway station. The artist has been revealed as “Poster Boy.” See the writeup by New York magazine and discussion on Edward Winkleman’s October 8 post. Poster Boy’s flickr page shows the same image I took with my own camera here.
I concluded in my first post that the continuity of the self from one piece to another was indeterminate, and this is in fact what is most interesting, and most at stake in this project. Now that we have a flickr page and a New York magazine article, it looks like evidence of a single continuous self is emerging.
There are two known possible tactics to maintain the fragmented self on geneological terms. One possibility is that a self named “Poster Boy” is a mask to be worn and discarded as needed by anybody at anytime. This could be part of the decentralized movement mentioned in the New York Magazine article. Several different human beings could claim participation in the project and this may or may not be happening. Another is denial or forgetfulness. At the end of the article Poster Boy denies ownership of the work when confronted by Law Enforcement Officers. One should expect a fragmented self to deny or forget what is in the past.
To see where these tactics may fail we have to look at Poster Boy’s fans and supporters. To the author of the New York Magazine article, a apparently sympathetic observer, it appears that Poster Boy does not deny authorship. When Banksy refused to authenticate work experts are convinced are by him, he was being true to a fragmented self. My question is this: how can a fragmented self maintain a coherent project extended over time without drawing upon resources the project aims to subvert?
I concluded in my first post that the continuity of the self from one piece to another was indeterminate, and this is in fact what is most interesting, and most at stake in this project. Now that we have a flickr page and a New York magazine article, it looks like evidence of a single continuous self is emerging.
There are two known possible tactics to maintain the fragmented self on geneological terms. One possibility is that a self named “Poster Boy” is a mask to be worn and discarded as needed by anybody at anytime. This could be part of the decentralized movement mentioned in the New York Magazine article. Several different human beings could claim participation in the project and this may or may not be happening. Another is denial or forgetfulness. At the end of the article Poster Boy denies ownership of the work when confronted by Law Enforcement Officers. One should expect a fragmented self to deny or forget what is in the past.
To see where these tactics may fail we have to look at Poster Boy’s fans and supporters. To the author of the New York Magazine article, a apparently sympathetic observer, it appears that Poster Boy does not deny authorship. When Banksy refused to authenticate work experts are convinced are by him, he was being true to a fragmented self. My question is this: how can a fragmented self maintain a coherent project extended over time without drawing upon resources the project aims to subvert?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Discourse of "anti-" review addendum
Does Surrealism deserve the middle column? An interesting comparison is Clement Greenberg’s essay “Avant Garde Attitudes” (1968). Greenberg argues that the art movement that first proposed a position that would “transcend” (Greenberg’s term) the high/low distinction was Dada and Greenberg called this the “popular avant garde”. Greenberg says also that some Surrealists joined the popular avant garde so on this point it does appear that Greenberg would agree with Shain that Surrealism goes in the middle column. If we take Greenberg’s position Dada heads up the center also.
Shain’s argument that Dada may have always been under the jurisdiction of Aesthetic may be an attempt to save Dada and abandon Surrealism, but if Greenberg is right this won’t work because it was the idea of Dada to take the center column in the first place, i.e. transcend the high/low distinction. Surrealism followed Dada’s footsteps.
Who’s right, Greenberg or Shain?
Shain’s argument that Dada may have always been under the jurisdiction of Aesthetic may be an attempt to save Dada and abandon Surrealism, but if Greenberg is right this won’t work because it was the idea of Dada to take the center column in the first place, i.e. transcend the high/low distinction. Surrealism followed Dada’s footsteps.
Who’s right, Greenberg or Shain?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Discourse of "anti-" review
Here is a great article by Ralph Shain that presents two rival models (or even better, traditions) of art theory, one called the Aesthetic or High, the other the Popular or Low. Both the Aesthetic and the Popular are active contenders today with their own histories and advocates.
Reproduced below is a table from the article (¶55) describing Popular and Aesthetic in a list of words, with a third column in the center. Surrealism is proposed here as a model that sought to transcend the standoff between Popular and Aesthetic. Surrealism failed and is relegated to art history and we can say this because “its works are judged by aesthetic or popular concepts; Rembrandt and Titian are not judged according to Surrealist concepts.”(¶61). In other words, Surrealism is not an independent tradition.
The two models are incommensurate in the way they approach judgements of quality and this is crucial. Popular will deny there are any inter-personal standards of quality, in short, to each his own. Popular places the judgement of the receiver (viewer) higher than the artist. (¶19) This suggests that the viewer is not called upon to defer to the informed judgement of the artist or to learn the history of the tradition the artwork is part of. Aesthetic on the other hand places art and the artist above the viewer (¶5) which in turn places certain demands on the viewer to acquire the requisite skill to recognize quality.
The way these two models handle this question is so important that I suspect it may be the best way to determine which one is in play during any given discussion, and how in the long run one may come to choose one over the other.
How each model judges quality will impact other issues as well. In the case of Popular, if there are no inter-personal standards of quality, then the only distinguishing characteristic between any given two works of art will be exchange value.
Aesthetic on the other hand has greater resources to draw upon to judge quality. There are numerous aesthetic theories past and present that have played a role in the history of Aesthetic, and to discuss them here is not necessary. It is enough to acknowledge that to operate in some kind of tradition, (or system if you prefer) that sets out to articulate inter-personal standards of quality is a hallmark of this model.
The discourse of “anti-” has clearly regressed to an academic style. (¶19) This fate may have been unavoidable. Dada remains the standard by which all “anti-” art discourse is measured by, but was it from the beginning under the jurisdiction of Aesthetic? (¶101) It is difficult to say if the subsequent absorption of Dada in to the museums shows this to be the case, or if in fact it was outside Aesthetic at the beginning. In any case, the article shows the discourse of “anti-” is becoming less effective. I suspect the reasons are very complicated and I don’t think the article offers a complete diagnosis. This article is good for pointing out that there is such a thing as the Aesthetic model, and I think future productivity lays in a complete re-examination of what the Aesthetic model can be today.
Reproduced below is a table from the article (¶55) describing Popular and Aesthetic in a list of words, with a third column in the center. Surrealism is proposed here as a model that sought to transcend the standoff between Popular and Aesthetic. Surrealism failed and is relegated to art history and we can say this because “its works are judged by aesthetic or popular concepts; Rembrandt and Titian are not judged according to Surrealist concepts.”(¶61). In other words, Surrealism is not an independent tradition.
| Aesthetic | Surrealism | Popular |
| Beauty | Marvelous | Entertainment |
| Individual | Collaboration | Popularity |
| Creation | Investigation | Consumption |
| Original | Unconscious | Recognizable |
| Form (al unity) | Juxtaposition | Content |
| Harmony | Turmoil | Ease |
| Genius | Chance | Talent |
| Enduring | Anachrony | Ephemeral |
| Contemplation | Revolution | Enjoyment |
The two models are incommensurate in the way they approach judgements of quality and this is crucial. Popular will deny there are any inter-personal standards of quality, in short, to each his own. Popular places the judgement of the receiver (viewer) higher than the artist. (¶19) This suggests that the viewer is not called upon to defer to the informed judgement of the artist or to learn the history of the tradition the artwork is part of. Aesthetic on the other hand places art and the artist above the viewer (¶5) which in turn places certain demands on the viewer to acquire the requisite skill to recognize quality.
The way these two models handle this question is so important that I suspect it may be the best way to determine which one is in play during any given discussion, and how in the long run one may come to choose one over the other.
How each model judges quality will impact other issues as well. In the case of Popular, if there are no inter-personal standards of quality, then the only distinguishing characteristic between any given two works of art will be exchange value.
Aesthetic on the other hand has greater resources to draw upon to judge quality. There are numerous aesthetic theories past and present that have played a role in the history of Aesthetic, and to discuss them here is not necessary. It is enough to acknowledge that to operate in some kind of tradition, (or system if you prefer) that sets out to articulate inter-personal standards of quality is a hallmark of this model.
The discourse of “anti-” has clearly regressed to an academic style. (¶19) This fate may have been unavoidable. Dada remains the standard by which all “anti-” art discourse is measured by, but was it from the beginning under the jurisdiction of Aesthetic? (¶101) It is difficult to say if the subsequent absorption of Dada in to the museums shows this to be the case, or if in fact it was outside Aesthetic at the beginning. In any case, the article shows the discourse of “anti-” is becoming less effective. I suspect the reasons are very complicated and I don’t think the article offers a complete diagnosis. This article is good for pointing out that there is such a thing as the Aesthetic model, and I think future productivity lays in a complete re-examination of what the Aesthetic model can be today.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Art in the Age of Intellectual Destruction
Walter Benjamin’s “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” has been required reading for anyone attending an American art school for so long that it has become part of the canon of contemporary art theory. Is it still trenchant given where we find ourselves today, over 70 years after it’s appearance? Here is a strong critique by Jonathan Davis that puts to the test our ability to take seriously Benjamin’s most famous art text.
Davis’ critique has four points.
1. The “aura” of art that Benjamin claims has been forever lost due to mechanical reproduction is poorly defined, never threatened by copies, merely the effect of hallucinogenic drugs, or applicable strictly to a narrow category of cult objects. The reference to drugs is outside the essay and is taken from Benjamin’s other writings. Has the “aura” of art persisted despite the rise of mass market culture, or was it never there in the first place? The best point is this: the opening of the Louvre in 1793 did more to wrench art from its older traditional context than any industrial reproduction techniques.
2. Davis critiques Benjamin’s ontology of painting by proposing an alternative. Benjamin claims that an artwork’s aura is dependent on there being a unique object located in space and time. Davis’ alternative is that a painting can be one element of a type, in other words several versions of the same painting. This could easily work with editions of sculpture, but painting is the harder case and I think Davis makes the case.
3. Davis argues that Benjamin’s essay is complicit with mass produced consumer culture. This is so because Benjamin can find no appeal for aesthetic value beyond individual preference. Consumer preferences is the value of the shopping mall, a serious competitor to the art museum.
4. Davis points out that Benjamin’s political commitments led him to renounce tradition. This unfortunately leaves no alternative to the shopping mall. The serious work of fine art is better able to resist the small world of consumer preferences and to awake in us sensibilities stunted by mass culture.
These are all, in my opinion, cogent arguments and merit serious contemplation.
Davis’ critique has four points.
1. The “aura” of art that Benjamin claims has been forever lost due to mechanical reproduction is poorly defined, never threatened by copies, merely the effect of hallucinogenic drugs, or applicable strictly to a narrow category of cult objects. The reference to drugs is outside the essay and is taken from Benjamin’s other writings. Has the “aura” of art persisted despite the rise of mass market culture, or was it never there in the first place? The best point is this: the opening of the Louvre in 1793 did more to wrench art from its older traditional context than any industrial reproduction techniques.
2. Davis critiques Benjamin’s ontology of painting by proposing an alternative. Benjamin claims that an artwork’s aura is dependent on there being a unique object located in space and time. Davis’ alternative is that a painting can be one element of a type, in other words several versions of the same painting. This could easily work with editions of sculpture, but painting is the harder case and I think Davis makes the case.
3. Davis argues that Benjamin’s essay is complicit with mass produced consumer culture. This is so because Benjamin can find no appeal for aesthetic value beyond individual preference. Consumer preferences is the value of the shopping mall, a serious competitor to the art museum.
4. Davis points out that Benjamin’s political commitments led him to renounce tradition. This unfortunately leaves no alternative to the shopping mall. The serious work of fine art is better able to resist the small world of consumer preferences and to awake in us sensibilities stunted by mass culture.
These are all, in my opinion, cogent arguments and merit serious contemplation.
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