Week 3 - Art and Robotics

As I was reading Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction the connection to Andy Warhol’s work came immediately to mind. In a sense Warhol played directly against Benjamin’s ideas about loss of aura in reproduction by creating art pieces that were purely reproductions to show how reproduction can create or deform aura.

To me Benjamin’s sense of aura in original artwork seems to be a sort of curiosity generated by an observers incomplete knowledge of the history of the object. This seems to be in harmony with Warhol’s understanding when he says, “I think ‘aura’ is something that only somebody else can see, and they only see as much of it as they want to. . . You can only see an aura on people you don’t know very well or don’t know at all” (Warhol, 77). Although Warhol refers to a person, the same applies to object in the sense that if there is no mystery behind the creation of an object it will cease to have aura. Benjamin himself seems to have a similar idea to Warhol, in aura being the idea of being removed from the reality of the object/person, “The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the camera penetrates deeply into its web” (Benjamin).  This holds true in my mind as aura seems to be enhanced by the observer’s porous understanding of the making of the object, but diminished by a complete understanding and sense of easy replication (think of the painter who can’t see the aura of his painting because he saw every step involved in painting it).

In the case of Warhol’s art, he used the idea of reproduction to show how aura can be created and deformed as observers become enamored or desensitized, (but either way curious). In his piece Marilyn Diptych, the distorted replications of Marilyn Monroe’s face evoke a sense of unknown celebrity where we are forced to wonder about the original piece’s aura (Marilyn herself), especially in the face of her death and fading presence. In another of his pieces Orange Disaster #5 he replicates the image of an electric chair with an orange filter with the effect of desensitizing and deforming the aura of what would otherwise be a object with a dark aura and history, in a way commenting on the politics of putting people to death. More modern examples that fuse replication and aura exist such as apple with their chic but personal devices (Shenshen) and video games that are all the same yet feel like authentic story lines.

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962, acrylic on canvas, 2054 x 1448 mm (Tate) © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 2015

Andy Warhol, Orange Disaster #5, 1928, acrylic and silkscreen on canvas,  269.2 x 207 cm (Guggenheim) (C) Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, Harry N. Abrams Family Collection, 1974  

An Apple Watch is tapped for a transaction during an Apple event last Tuesday in Cupertino, California. — Reuters 

"Andy Warhol, 'Marilyn Diptych' 1962." Tate. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-marilyn-diptych-t03093>.

Benjamin, W. (1968). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In H. Zohn (Trans.), Illuminations: Essays and reflections. New York: Schocken.

"Orange Disaster #5." Guggenheim. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/4176>.

Shenshen, Zhu. "Apple's Aura Continues to Shine and Create Buzz in IT Industry." Apple's Aura Continues to Shine and Create Buzz in IT Industry. 18 Apr. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

<http://www.shanghaidaily.com/business/it/Apples-aura-continues-to-shine-and-create-buzz-in-IT-industry/shdaily.shtml>.

Warhol, Andy. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.