By Xavier Woodgate
In this essay, I argue against Walter Benjamin’s claim that film, as a mechanically reproduced work of art, no longer possesses an ‘aura’ and that, rather, having left the spotlight of contemporaneity that Benjamin thought of film in, it has achieved a historicity that has established an ‘aura’ for film. However, I do not eschew Benjamin’s claim against the loss of aura in mechanically reproduced works entirely, and I maintain it against some contemporary developments in the mechanical reproduction of art through a diachronic analysis of the evolution of film into livestreaming. To create this argument, I first reconstruct the reasoning undergirding Benjamin’s claim from his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and then critically reflect on the soundness of Benjamin’s analysis in consideration of contemporary developments in the mechanical reproduction of art.
In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Benjamin argues that “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of a work of art.”[1] Aura, for Benjamin, refers to the distance between art and the viewer by virtue of the authority the object has achieved through its authenticity, which is constructed through a combination of its singularity/uniqueness, the history of the artwork, and the “theology of art” surrounding it.[2] For Benjamin, mechanical reproducibility – which began to seriously develop with the invention of lithography and accelerated with the evolution of photography, and eventually film – caused art to lose its aura, and therefore its authority, in three interrelated ways. First, it eliminated singularity by enabling the creation of identical copies; second, it removed the artwork from its original spatial context, instead situating it within the viewer’s experience; and finally, it transformed the telos of art into reproduction.
On this first point, Benjamin notes that the authority of artworks is achieved through “historical testimony [that] rests on authenticity.”[3] Reproduction, Benjamin argues, displaces the work of art from its history by “substituting a plurality of copies for a unique existence.”[4] Thus, art which coexists with its own facsimile loses its authority, and thus its auratic quality, by becoming fungible through mechanical reproduction.[5] Prior to the development of film this was not a problem, as the original still had its “presence in space and time, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be,” which allowed the original “to preserve its authenticity.”[6] However, with the development of film and photography that can produce identical, if not better (in cases where it has been enhanced with effects such as zoom) copies of the original, the authentic piece of art loses all of its authority which results in a “tremendous shattering of tradition.”[7]
On the second point, Benjamin highlights that mechanically reproduced artwork, in becoming mass-produced, has left its traditional domain and is thus perceived in a different light. This point is twofold: artwork is no longer received in a single space, like a gallery, and – for this reason –invites less of a critical lens while offering the chance to recover the minutiae of previously unexamined elements of life. Humanity, Benjamin argues, has a desire “to bring things ‘closer’ spatially and humanly” which is evident in the increasing acceptance of its reproduction.[8] This desire began to limit the exhibition value of art, which further diminished the singularity, and thus auratic quality, of the work. Furthermore, for film, the loss of this auratic, exhibition, quality leads to the actor becoming “presented by the camera.” thereby diminishing the audience’s ability to enter the seat of the critic—as they are only “identifying with the camera” which results in the “critical and receptive attitudes of the public coincid[ing]” and thus becoming homogenous.[9] Additionally, the actor must experience a “forgoing of his aura,” where their actions are not whole but rather “composed of many separate performances.”[10] Ultimately, however, this repositioning affords the viewer the privileged position of a perspective unencumbered by the extraneous accessories such as cameras or lighting machinery through manipulated viewpoints and the editing process that “preserves a look of reality” and is an “orchid in the realm of technology.”[11] This repositioning also “more readily lends itself to analysis,” which possesses both scientific and artistic value in enabling closer analysis of the minutiae of our environment and in “extend[ing] the comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives.”[12]
On the third point, Benjamin notes that the purpose of art has shifted from ritual and cultic value to that of reproducibility. Ritual value, present in religious and magical works, developed into cult value, which most recently became the “secularised cult of beauty” predominant in post-1700s art.[13] This artistic theology was replaced by what Benjamin terms a “negative theology” with the central idea of “pure art,” where the telos of art is found in l’art pour l’art (art for art’s sake) rather than art for a ritual or cult purpose. Benjamin conceives of this change as being emancipatory, as it removes the art “from its parasitical dependence on ritual.”[14] The loss of this cult value is also emphasised in the immediacy of film’s presentation which makes their position as partial critic “require no attention.”[15] In this way, film lost its auratic quality in its removal from the authority conferred on it by tradition and history in its cult and ritual value.
Thus, the changes present in these three interrelated points highlight mechanical reproduction’s dissolution of the aura of art – its authority rooted in uniqueness and tradition – by making works widely accessible, removing them from their original context, and reorienting their purpose toward reproduction. While this may seem like a loss, Benjamin sees it as emancipatory: the decay of aura dismantles the uncritical reverence art commands under tradition, which he associates with fascism’s aestheticisation of politics.[16] In its place, reproduction allows for mass engagement and a politicisation of art, opening new possibilities for critical and democratic reception.[17]
While Benjamin’s prognostication as to the withering of aura is prudent in regard to some contemporary developments, the development of a historicity of film has created an auratic and authoritative quality to the medium, and it has thus not lost this quality as Benjamin predicted. The evolution of generic film traditions particularly underscores this point. Arthouse and experimental films, for example, require the viewer to appreciate the history predating a film in order to fully engage with it. For instance, enjoyment of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½ – an experimental film shot from a single, continuously zooming angle – relies on the viewer’s familiarity with the preceding film and with the broader experimental project of capturing unhindered reality.[18] It might be argued that this context is not central to appreciating the film, and that one can still enjoy it in the passive mode of the partial receiver-critic that Benjamin describes. Yet even if this is conceded, it is difficult to deny that film has developed a history and artistic theology of its own, even if it is an iteration of the secularised cult of beauty.[19] This is especially clear in the oeuvres of directors such as Lars von Trier or Béla Tarr, whose films are not made for mass reproducibility (as reflected in their poor box office returns, comparative to their contemporaries), but rather for advancing their respective genres—much like early ritualistic art’s fixation with its cultic purpose.[20] In this sense, film’s evolution has not only been aesthetic but structural, creating new hierarchies resembling those that Benjamin believed mechanically reproduced art may dissolve.
The implications of the development of mechanically reproducible art extends beyond the artistic sphere into the personal and domestic. The persistence of auratic value is visible in the domestic use of film: the “home video” has come to occupy a ritual-like space, where families record and preserve memories in a way that mirrors the cultic function Benjamin claims was lost. On this point, Benjamin’s notion that film, by virtue of its form, is inherently devoid of aura, appears malformed; film retains its auratic quality through preservation, personal relatability, and developing its own artistic theology. Additionally, the critical distance that Benjamin claimed film could not afford the viewer has, in fact, evolved. If this distance is not already evident in the development of genre-based histories and traditions, it is certainly manifest in the viewer’s ability to pause, replay, and rewatch films. These practices allow viewers to actively shape their engagement, manufacturing distance and reflection that undermine Benjamin’s claim that film fuses passive reception with identification. Importantly, even if one accepts Benjamin’s argument about the loss of aura, his broader view – that this loss is politically emancipatory – must also be reckoned with. Benjamin contends that aura lends itself to authoritarian structures by cloaking art in tradition and authority, and that mechanical reproduction, by dissolving aura, disrupts the aestheticisation of politics. In its place, Benjamin sees the possibility of politicised art. However, the development of film’s own traditions, combined with the modern viewer’s ability to manipulate their experience, suggests that film today sustains both aura and criticality despite being delivered to the masses. Rather than liquidating tradition, it creates new ones, challenging the rigid dichotomy Benjamin draws between aura and political awareness.
While Benjamin’s criticism of film as having lost aura appears, as I argued above, to be misled, the contemporary rise of livestreamed media revitalises many of his concerns about the dissolution of aura in mechanically reproduced art. Live streaming – whether through traditional live television or internet-based broadcasts of ordinary life – is structured around uninterrupted reproduction. With content unfolding in real time, the viewer has little opportunity to pause or reflect on what is presented, limiting the possibility of critical engagement. This recalls Benjamin’s argument that the immediacy of mechanically reproduced media nullifies the reflective distance necessary for critical thought. In livestreaming, the temporal proximity between event and viewer becomes even more pronounced than in film, often leaving no buffer for interpretation or sustained analysis, as the viewer engages with the material seconds after it occurs in reality. This effect becomes more apparent when examined diachronically. The trajectory from early live television, which primarily broadcast scheduled and curated content like news or sport, to the development of 24/7 television, then to the ubiquity of always-on, unscripted livestreams on platforms such as Twitch or YouTube Live, demonstrates a shift toward increasingly immediate and decontextualised media.[21]
Where live television retained some degree of editorial structure and narrative framing through schedules and institutional oversight, contemporary livestreaming often resists such frameworks. Platforms like Twitch, where creators broadcast themselves performing anything from gaming to routine personal activities, reflect this shift. These streams often lack a defined telos, instead prioritising viewer engagement and the indefinite reproduction of content. Similarly, “IRL” (In Real Life) online livestreams centre on spontaneous, unstructured broadcasting, where the livestreamer walks through cities, reacts to strangers, or monologues. Here, the aim is not to construct meaning but to maintain presence, sustaining the stream for its own sake – any scripted elements merely facilitate continued existence. In this model, the telos of art that Benjamin described – originally rooted in ritual or cultic function and later replaced by a secularised aesthetic purpose – becomes increasingly ambiguous. The purpose of many livestreams appears to be reproduction itself: to keep the viewer watching in real time, with the content serving the continuity of its own flow rather than any higher narrative, aesthetic, or critical goal.[22] It might be argued that this live immediacy introduces a kind of temporal uniqueness, or a fleeting authenticity that gives the stream momentary significance, as each moment builds on the last and lacks the manipulative control of editing present in film. Yet this immediacy does not reintroduce aura in Benjamin’s terms, as it is not grounded in singularity, historical authority, or cultural embeddedness. Once the stream ends, it is forgotten as quickly as the next begins, or is repackaged as short-form clips for further consumption. In this sense, livestreaming revitalises Benjamin’s observations as to mechanical reproduction’s degradation of the auratic quality of art. Its structure discourages reflective engagement and signals a further departure from any fixed telos, reinforcing a mode of reception homogenised by its immediacy.
Positioning livestreaming diachronically, as has been done above, the livestream thus appears to be carrying on the politically emancipatory goals Benjamin believes to be developed in film, but in arguably an improved form.[23] Compared to films, the ubiquity of livestreams means there is hardly a uniqueness to any single stream or moment captured and this – paired with the form being more highly disseminatable and lacking a coherent artistic theology – leaves livestreaming as possessing less of an auratic quality than film. This can be attributed to the development in livestreaming of the artist-as-subject, as distinct from the painter and their painting or the director and their film.[24] However, it is difficult to entirely accept the proposition that livestreaming is better suited to take up this emancipatory aesthetics than film, as having the artist-as-subject in livestreaming foregrounds the artist as an authoritative figure within the art, whereas in film the director’s intentions remain – as much as they are present in the film – behind the camera.[25] This leaves the artist as the variable in regard to the political flavour of the art. In this position, the artist can either engage in the fascistic aestheticisation of politics or the emancipatory, communistic politicisation of aesthetics. Thus, while certainly being a diachronic evolution of film, livestreaming has not necessarily inherited all its emancipatory value.
However, what the diachronic analysis of film into livestreams does reveal is an increasing flattening of the critical distance between the audience and the artist. While an artist’s politics remain central to the emancipatory value of the work, the distinction between artist, critic, and audience has grown increasingly asymptotic, inverting auratic power dynamics. The dissolution of these categories is evident in the growing ease of producing art generally. Apps such as TikTok and Instagram incentivise the average person to cultivate an image for themselves and depict their lives within the same canvas as celebrities and artists. Through this cultivation, the average person subsumes their identity into reproducible and ever-examinable videos or posts. On these apps, a postal worker’s lunch can exist within the same framework as a Kardashian’s bridal shower. While it may be argued that within the framework of social media the auratic quality of posts can be quantified directly with engagement (likes, views, shares, etc.), the mere opportunity for an individual to coexist within this framework is indicative of a novel flattening of historically stratified categories. It is difficult to position this development neatly within Benjaminian thought. Where Benjamin viewed the homogenisation of audience reception as politically emancipatory, the synthesis of three historically distinct categories – the audience, the critic, and the artist – into one problematises the value of this homogenisation. The critic and artist, who traditionally existed within the galleries and auditoriums, were central to legitimating the auratic quality of art by affirming its authenticity and singularity through its viewership or performance in-person. Their synthesis with the general audience may be positioned in two ways: firstly, it may inform a more critical, analytical approach to informing the homogenised opinion of the general audience, or, secondly, it may minimise the opportunity for the general audience to politicise the aesthetics and interrogate the auratic quality of art by merging collective approval with legitimation. It is difficult to resolve to either position with certainty, especially in light of contemporary developments in the mechanical reproduction of art. Most notably, artificial intelligence ‘art’ has removed the artist from the equation but has retained none of the qualities which legitimate art as auratic.[26] The absence of aura from AI ‘art’ has not positioned it as an emancipatory tool. Rather, it has removed production as an act of creative or political agency and turned it into an automated process of imitation, where meaning is generated statistically rather than expressively. Taken together, these developments suggest that while the mechanisms of reproduction have transmogrified, the underlying tensions Benjamin identified between the mechanical reproducibility of art, and its political implications, have not diminished but evolved.
In critically reflecting on Benjamin’s prognostications as to the development of film it is evident that, while his analysis identifies important transformations introduced by mechanical reproduction, his claim that film necessarily withers aura is overstated. Film has, over time, cultivated its own historicity and aesthetic traditions, often demanding informed and reflective engagement from its audience. This development complicates the binary Benjamin draws between mechanical reproducibility and auratic authority. At the same time, his concerns remain strikingly applicable to newer forms of media, particularly livestreaming, where immediacy and perpetual reproduction appear to erode both critical distance and artistic telos outside of that of pure reproducibility. These contemporary instances thus both disprove and reaffirm Benjamin’s predictions regarding the development of mechanical reproduction. Thus, while film as a medium has resisted the loss of aura, Benjamin’s broader account of mechanical reproduction retains significant relevance in understanding the evolving conditions of aesthetic experience today, and the continually evolving possibilities for a markedly anti-fascist politicisation of art.
Xavier is a fourth-year Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Laws (Hons) student, majoring in English literature and philosophy at the University of Queensland. He enjoys studying English literature and philosophy widely, but is particularly interested in aesthetic philosophy, existentialism, jurisprudence, and literary theory.
Featured image: Beau Carpenter via Unsplash.
Bibliography
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, edited by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. First published 1935; reissued, New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
Bowie, Andrew. From Romanticism to Critical Theory: The Philosophy of German Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1997.
Cason Jr., Franklin and Tsitsi Jaji. “Symbiopsychotaxiplasticity: Some takes on William Greaves,” Cultural Studies 28, no. 4 (2014): 574–593. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2014.888926.
Caygill, Howard. Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience. London: Routledge, 1998.
Cazeaux, Clive. “Walter Benjamin,” in The Continental Aesthetics Reader, 2nd edition, edited by Clive Cazeaux. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Habermas, Jürgen. “Walter Benjamin: Consciousness-Raising or Rescuing Critique,” in On Walter Benjamin: Essays and Recollections, edited by Gary Smith. First published 1972; reissued, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988.
Hagener, Malte and Yvonne Zimmermann, eds. How Film Histories Were Made: Materials, Methods, Discourses. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024.
Jones, Marcus. “Harmony Korine Says Film Is Losing Fresh Talent to Livestreaming: ‘IShowSpeed Is the New Tarkovsky’,” IndieWire, 31 August, 2024, https://www.indiewire.com/news/festivals/harmony-korine-on-baby-invasion-film-losing-talent-streamers-1235042548/.
Klosterman, Chuck. “What Happens When People Stop Being Polite,” in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. New York: Scribner, 2003.
Leitch, Vincent, Laurie Finke, John McGowan, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and Jeffrey Williams, eds. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Ogden, Benjamin. “How Lars von Trier Sees the World: Postmodernism
and Globalization in The Five Obstructions,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 27, no. 1 (2009): 54–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200802241381.
Rancière, Jacques. “Béla Tarr: The Poetics and Politics of Fiction,” in Slow Cinema, edited by Tiago de Luca and Nuno Barradas Jorge. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Schiermer, Bjørn. “On the Collective and the Auratic in Benjamin’s Artwork Essay: A Constructive Rereading,” in The Palgrave Walter Benjamin Handbook, edited by Nathan Ross. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
[1] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (First published 1935; reis., New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 221.
[2] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 218–224; Jürgen Habermas, “Walter Benjamin: Consciousness-Raising or Rescuing Critique,” in On Walter Benjamin: Essays and Recollections, ed. Gary Smith (First published 1972; reis., Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988), 108.
[3] Benajmin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 221.
[4] Benajmin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 221; Clive Cazeaux, “Walter Benjamin,” in The Continental Aesthetics Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Clive Cazeaux (New York: Routledge, 2011), 429–430.
[5] Cazeaux, “Walter Benjamin,” 429–430.
[6] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 220; Vincent Leitch et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018), 975.
[7] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 221.
[8] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 223.
[9] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 224; Bjørn Schiermer, “On the Collective and the Auratic in Benjamin’s Artwork Essay: A Constructive Rereading,” in The Palgrave Walter Benjamin Handbook, ed. Nathan Ross (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 677.
[10] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 229–230.
[11] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 233.
[12] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 236; Schiermer, “On the Collective and the Auratic in Benjamin’s Artwork Essay: A Constructive Reading,” 678–679.
[13] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 224; Andrew Bowie, From Romanticism to Critical Theory: The Philosophy of German Literary Theory (London: Routledge, 1997), 232–232.
[14] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 224.
[15] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 241.
[16] Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 241–242; Howard Caygill, Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience (London: Routledge, 1998), 115–116.
[17] Caygill, Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience, 115–116.
[18] See Franklin Cason Jr. and Tsitsi Jaji, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasticity: Some takes on William Greaves,” Cultural Studies 28, no. 4 (2014): 574–593, https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2014.888926.
[19] On the historiography of film see, broadly, Malte Hagener, and Yvonne Zimmermann, eds., How Film Histories Were Made: Materials, Methods, Discourses (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024). https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.14170605.
[20] For von Trier, see Benjamin Ogden, “How Lars von Trier Sees the World: Postmodernism
and Globalization in The Five Obstructions,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 27, no. 1 (2009): 54–68, https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200802241381; for Tarr, see Jacques Rancière, “Béla Tarr: The Poetics and Politics of Fiction,” in Slow Cinema, eds. Tiago de Luca and Nuno Barradas Jorge (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 245–260.
[21] For a pop sociology discussion of this development, see Chuck Klosterman, “What Happens When People Stop Being Polite,” in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto (New York: Scribner, 2003), 26–40.
[22] Resembling l’existence pour l’existence rather than l’art pour l’art.
[23] Director Harmony Korine, perhaps in jest, has made a similar point when he referred to livestreamer IShowSpeed as “the new Tarkovsky”: Marcus Jones, “Harmony Korine Says Film Is Losing Fresh Talent to Livestreaming: ‘IShowSpeed Is the New Tarkovsky’,” IndieWire, 31 August, 2024, https://www.indiewire.com/news/festivals/harmony-korine-on-baby-invasion-film-losing-talent-streamers-1235042548/.
[24] A counterexample may be raised as to self-portraits, or films where directors cast themselves. However, this is arguably distinct, as the portrait is still preoccupied with what the artist captures through their style, just as the film is focussed on the narrative value of the director as a character.
[25] Indeed, the opportunity to excise the artist’s politics from their art is partly the reason that many believe it is possible to separate the art from the artist.
[26] That is, it does not come from a traceable artistic lineage that is not imitative; it does not exist singularly; and its telos is solely reproduction. It may be argued that this ‘art’ is grounded in emancipatory opportunity as it removes any historical authority from the works. However, the absence of human participation in the creation and – at times – dissemination of the works, positions it as a communicative device in a position similar to emoticons, rather than a novel, soulful, expressionistic work of art.
EXORDIUM 