Before the lecture, I read the recommend reading materials as Walter
Benjamin's essay “The work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity” and
Adorno och Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. With the difficulties I had, I took part in the lecture
and seminar. During the lecture, the teacher first gave two question which are “How
should we handle the broken promises of the Enlightenment?” and “What is the
role of culture in society”. The most awesome part I think is the explanation
of some key concepts, It is significantly helpful for me to get better
understanding of Benjamin’s text. In addition, the flow chart provided in the
lecture make me clearly analysis the relationships between some key words in
Adorno’s essay. In the seminar, we mainly talk about superstructure and
substructure. Although the two concepts are very abstract, the discussion and
teacher’s explanation are really useful to me. Now at least I get some knowledge
of what Benjamin and Adorno want to enlight us.
During the seminar, we were also divided into small
groups and discussion what we are confused. The hot issue in our group is “Are
there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?” The
definition of aura is equal with unique. In my opinion, Natural
objects have unique aura in different situation, but aura for art objects
is only existed in its original version, reproduction cannot be the same as
original one because of lacking one unique element.
Contributed one week to concentrate on the method of
Benjamin and Adorno, I am aware of that culture is an significant element to
the society even human evolution but still confused about many concepts in their texts.
Hej,I think you really did a good job.For the conception of "aura",it interests me a lot.You mentioned that the "aura" is situationally determined for the natural objects.Does this mean that we just utilize the objects in certain conditions meanwhile give them different meanings to prove their senses of existance? In my group,like we concluded,it should be the "soul" of objects to communicate with us.Thanks for sharing.
回复删除Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! I agree with you that due to the lecture and Seminar I have understood the texts better. For example, I have learnt that my approach is correct but not what Adorno and Horkheimer tried to express. In contrast to my approach that Nominalism undermines National Socialism, we figured out that it actually upholds it. I thought that the mass media and enlightment part was really interesting. In addition to this, have you considered that due to zooming and cutting you will get a fragmented picture of the world looks like? Well done!
回复删除Very nice that you got the difference from Benjamins view on revolutionary potential contra Adorno & Horkheimer! It seems that you had a good discussion going on the seminar so it would've been nice to hear more from that. What else did you discuss? What did you as a group think/did you come to a conclusion?
回复删除Keep it up!
Thanks for your posts as well as your comments. I enjoy reading your reflection and find your discussion on "aura" very interesting. You mentioned that 'The definition of aura is equal with unique.' It is very interesting explanation. I partly agree with you that "aura for art objects is only existed in its original version, reproduction cannot be the same as original one because of lacking one unique element." It is a good way to help understanding aura with unique, but i think aura cannot be entirely equal with unique. Maybe it is the aura makes it unique. What do you think? Again, nice job on your reflection!
回复删除I agree with you about aura and the differences between the aura of natural objects and art objects. Aura of art objects is relative to its uniqueness and its authenticity, whereas aura for natural objects depends on the object and the situation. And by natural objects, I mean common objects. For example, if you wish very hard to have an object for a long time, and one day, you get it. I think that the object has an kind of aura that can be bring closer to exclusivity of the moment. Don’t you agree?
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