e-Withering: A Diachronic Analysis of Auratic Art in the New Age of Film and Livestreaming

In this essay, Xavier Woodgate argues 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, Woodgate does not eschew Benjamin’s claim against the loss of aura in mechanically reproduced works entirely, and he maintains it against some contemporary developments in the mechanical reproduction of art through a diachronic analysis of the evolution of film into livestreaming.

Between Seeing and Being Seen: Rembrandt’s Self-Portraiture and the Ethicality of Vision

This essay explores the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s self-portraits from both an art historical and philosophical perspective. In this essay, Andrew Millar argues that rigorous art historical analysis that situates Rembrandt’s self-portraiture within a blossoming, observable art historical tradition intersected with market demands and historically accurate trends in art does not exclude their philosophical, psychological analysis as some art historians claim. Rather, Millar draws from phenomenological art historical methods to argue that Rembrandt’s portraits function as an exploration and disclosure of the acts of seeing and self-recognition.