Walter Benjamin
Walter BenjaminAddiction is characteristic of modernity. Intoxication served to buffer the shock of the modern. Beginning in the nineteenth century, a narcotic (via a tricking-of-the-senses as to what reality is by new cinema technologies) was made out of reality itself.
Aesthetics is a genre in which the politicization of modern reproducible art is demanded both to reflect the state of a society and to incite change.
Aesthetics is the instinctual mediation of inside and outside through human sense perception.
The Angelus Novus is a drawing in which the nothing repels, a repulsion that is a parting gesture toward beings that are submerging as a whole.
Aura is a kind of unapproachability, that is, the unique phenomenon of a distance however close it may be.
Aura is a related to notions of uniqueness and authenticity, both of which become irrelevant in arts such as film which are eminently replicable in nature.
Aura is all that is fascinating in a work of art, derived from its unique existence which endows it with symbolic authority. Its authority turns on the phenomenon of distance, that of the past and tradition.
Aura is appearance of a distance, however close the thing that calls it forth. The trace, by contrast, is appearance of a nearness, however far removed the thing that left it behind may be. In the trace, we gain possession of the thing... in the aura, it takes possession of us.
Aura is that whereby a thing, on the basis of its unbridgeable distance, takes possession of us... just as a trace is a kind of left-behind nearness that allows us to gain possession of a thing.
Aura's loss is associated with an aesthetic impoverishment, a loss of cultural value and a severing of the connection with the past... the autonomy of the image is one of the fetishes of capitalism.
Aura is the singular leave-taking of the singular, whose singularity is no longer that of an original moment but of its posthumous aftershock.
The Aura is the symbolic authority of a piece of art gained from its uniqueness, its past, and its place within tradition. With modern reproducibility, that symbolic authority no longer functions.
The Author must attend to teaching the writer about how writing stands in the mode of production. An author who teaches a writer nothing, teaches nobody anything.
An Author's politics is to be discerned by the extent of his reflection on his place 'in the process of production'.
The Author is tasked not to develop products, but to work with the means of production.
The Book is an article which tells much about a man: His tastes, his interest, his habits.
