Contemporary Digital Media

It is common knowledge that nowadays, just about anyone who owns a computer and camera can make a work of ‘art’ in a few simple steps. Contemporary digital media is a large part of modern day life since most young people have online website profiles etc. But is it ok to call any digital photo graph or photo-shopped image real art?

Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936) explains that art was originally copied by Greek people long before the digital devices we use today. But apart from what they could reproduce, anything else made was unique and different. Benjamin’s idea was that something made by the creator first hand had an ‘aura’ that disappeared after it was copied. This meant that anything mechanically reproduced broke tradition and decreased the worth of the piece. It would be easy to say that Benjamin believed that copies are not real and valuable art.

This means that in today’s world, the definition of art is much more complicated then what it used to be before technology. Now it is hard to know what is original compared to what is copied. According to Benjamin’s ideas, digital photography shouldn’t be considered real art because it can be printed multiple times, which would decrease the aura of the work. If digital media was considered as real art, it would mean that it is easier to make and copy. According to Benjamin, the pieces would not be worth much artistically, but realistically, more people would be open minded and consider the more modern forms of art as just as valuable.

Another issue with modern day technology is whether ‘photo-shopped’ images are authentic. Photo shopped images are usually described as photographs that have been edited using computer software to create a more ‘perfect’ image. Magazines commonly use photo shopped images on their covers, this is to create the illusion of perfection. I believe the original photograph taken with a digital camera is authentic, but the changed version is not. This is because there has been a process in between the photo being taken and the photo being printed that makes the picture lose the real subject being captured. If a digital photo was able to maintain the aura of an artwork, the photo shop process would definitely remove it.

Digital things do not have an aura in Benjamin’s words because they can easily duplicate the original product. This detaches the artist from the work and breaks tradition.