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.

Fast forward to the present day where Benjamin's essay is getting renewed attention. Once again we have a novel new way of mass producing and distributing information. Will computer, the internet and the digital art it produces finally succeed in taking down art from its holy place? In class we discussed the place of electronic literature in canon and wondered how digital art will be placed next to the Mona Lisa. If we listen to Benjamin perhaps we shouldn't be pushing to fit them into these traditional modes of understanding and categorizing art. Why do we feel the need to place art in this "up on high place" or require it to be such in order to be considered good art? I think Benjamin is calling for a radical changing of our notions of what art should be and do. For Benjamin the teleology of art is clear, art is politics. More than ever before the barrier between artist and audience is easily broken. Videos made by a nobody goes viral in day, we've seen it happen. We are beginning to see examples of democratization in media. Events and performances can be recorded and shared. Google 3-D model and street views of ancient Greek architecture available to me sitting all the way in VA. There are countless more examples. When we all begin to participate and give up being passive consumers of art, it is then we realize we each have the potential for self-motivated creative and political activity. Digital art doesn't have to try and fit into canon. In fact I think its responsibility is to break free from it and demonstrate its power to change and influence; not because of some mysterious aura of original or personality but because there is an important message to be shared and discourse to be had.