As my paper comes to its end I've been thinking about Walter Benjamin's essay on "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility". Essentially in Benjamin's theory art and politics are become intertwined in the age of reproducibility. When things are easily produced and shared there is no longer the sacredness of the original piece of work, it becomes unimportant when photography and film come into the picture. Benjamin states, "For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual". With photography and film there is no "original" and there is no inherent value in one copy of the photograph or film over the other. Benjamin theorized that as the ritualistic placement of art faded then art would become based on politics; in addition the barriers between artist and audience would in turn break down. Benjamin strongly desired to see new conceptualizations of the role of art and artist in society. Sadly, I do not believe photography and film ever caused the revolution Benjamin hoped it would.