Mapping
Benjamin: The Work of
Art in the Digital Age
by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
and Michael Marrinan,
Editors
Stanford University Press,
Stanford CA USA, 2003
368 pp. Trade: $60.00,
Paper, $25.95
ISBN: 080474435i, ISBN
0-8047-4436-x.
Reviewed by Mike Mosher
Saginaw
Valley State University
mosher@svsu.edu
Walter Benjamin's 1936
essay, translated from
the German as The Work
of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproducibility, has
gradually grown in status
to a crucial and canonical
work, from which so much
can be and has been derived
or extrapolated. Editors
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
and Michael Marrinan select
and define its major themes,
a process that, in itself,
provides a useful key
to Benjamin's essay. They
then organize contemporary
essays around these themes
that at least touch upon
them. Themes identified
from "The Work" include
Aura, History, Replication,
Representation, Technology,
Authenticity, Critical
Discourse, Absence, Fetish,
and Ritual.
It is interesting to read
contemporary German and
European scholarship on
Benjamin. Some essays
build upon Hegelian-Marxist
or Heideggers philosophical
tropes. Several authors
wonder whether the loss
of artworks' unique "aura"
is furthered by digital
media, or if their aura
is amplified and distributed.
Jurgen Link examines aura
in Steven Spielberg's
Hollywood films, while
Peter Gilgen appreciates
Benjamin's realization
that film can provide
an epiphanic "dialectical
moment" connecting the
viewer with history that
never was . . . and perhaps
should have been.
In literature, Lindsay
Waters finds echoes of
Mary Shelley and a foretaste
of Julio Cortazar in Benjamin's
assertion that "the cameraman
and machine are now one,"
while the spirit of Benjamin's
cafe conversations enlivens
a fragment of Robert P.
Harrison's fiction. Richard
Schiff links Benjamin's
interest in Marcel Prousts
memories of moments to
photography and digital
media. Walter Moser carries
insights from "The Work"
to a contemporary viewing
of Weimar-era collagist
John Heartfied. Beatriz
Sarlo applies Benjamins
theses to both jazz and
the TV channel-changer
zapping one image for
another, while the historic
essay inspires Maria Rosa
Menocals examination
of rock n' roll both recorded
and in concert.
The contentiousness of
several of this collections
essays comes through in
the title of Antoine Hennion
and Bruno Latour's contribution,
"How to Make Mistakes
on So Many Things at Onceand
Become Famous For It."
Joshua Feinstein laments
the failure of cyberspace
to deliver Benjamin's
materialist vision of
a harmony of consciousness
and technology in "If
Only It Were Real."
In a harmony of form and
content, the book is graced
with an evanescent cover
design by Rob Ehle that
is reminiscent of his
1990s podium at Xerox
PARC, the research center
where much of the technology
that helps define our
digital age was first
developed and demonstrated.
In the book's Preface,
editors Gumbrecht and
Marrinan find Benjamin
erroneous and out-of-date
post-1989, with the "failure
of his historical prognostication"
and sloppy communist conviction
that progressive forces
shall evermore politicize
aesthetics. This reviewer
remains unconvinced by
their argument. When one
considers recent creative
phenomena like community
murals, 'zines, "billboard
corrections," or
Thurston Moore's anti-Iraq
war MP3 website www.protest-records.com,
one is heartened to think
that there are more rebel
media than ever in public
hands. Benjamin would
be proud.