Dissertation - Summary - THE WORK OF AURA IN THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

To begin to summarise, I believe that the rise of mechanical reproduction, has radically affected how art, film and music is created and distributed as well as making us question how we create and classify art. Due to the breakdown of traditional methods, classifying art can come in limitless forms. It could be argued that within the wider context, an entirely new art form has been created which affects all these different media that encompasses both its creation and distribution as fairly equal aspects. However it could be said that the digital era is leading to the extinction of physical formats. This is inextricably linked to the demand of our current culture for instant accessibility to multimedia. Our current society is highly immersed in technology which has become a commodity of everyday life. Through a large and complex system of information and communication, multi- media are made accessible on many formats which are also open to manipulation.

The machinery and technology that is argued to dictate our digital culture cannot be represented in physical terms no more. Computer technology is making information almost disappear and become invisible. But it is almost becoming natural to us to conceive work as data rather than something tangible. The same can be said of how multi- media is increasingly being created and represented. Through the rise of capitalism and it’s compulsive drive towards abstraction, it has broadly shaped our Digital landscape. Which could say that aura in physicality is becoming of less importance or relevance as our culture demands instant access to the broad spectrum of media, and capitalism is there to provide at any expense or consequences. Just as in the film Blade Runner, the world is run by capitalist companies, such as Tyrell, that has made advancements in the means of technology and are able to clone humans. But this seems to of come at some consequence of the planet, as it’s always dark and raining.

The distinction of aura is constantly being blurred as it seems to be very relevant to the past that tie in with nostalgic elements. Time and development of technology is continuously liquidating aura and nostalgia. It is forever changing as everything is relative to what came before and after. But the ever increasing rate at which it is now morphing and becoming ever abstract, is constantly multiplying in pace due to technologies capabilities nowadays. It’s almost like a fast-forward effect that makes development happen at a dramatic rate in a short amount of time. A speeding up of the process, which can excite both terror and euphoria.

Walter Benjamin argued that aura is lost when an original piece of art is reproduced. However that is not the case in digital culture, as different mediums are a created in digital formats, so an original was never there. So how will aura be defined in digital work? I feel that nostalgia will be forever present in defining aura in the same way that certain smells and sounds can evoke specific and vivid memories of childhood and is essentially informed by the perceptions and experiences of the viewer relating to the work. Different artifacts of work are now accessible on many different formats, but more and more it only exists as information located in a broad digital media scope, such as the internet or our personal mp3 players and computers. No longer will something such as a CD have its own individual aura of physicality. The content itself can trigger nostalgia, but I certainly believe that it loses a considerable amount of its experience, due to it how it’s viewed, or listened to in a digital format.

There might come a time when we will no longer be able to revisit old artifacts such as a vinyl, and be listened on a record player. Not only would this trigger nostalgic aura in terms of the music itself, but interacting with this artifact of the past gives it something unique due to its interaction and physical experience. Whereas viewing films, or listening to music on your computer as just digital data, it has a more generic experience. A simple few clicks and you’re viewing a feature length film. This definitely does not ruin your viewing, if anything its better thanks to the digitizing of media. It allows greater variation of interacting and viewing it, but only as digital information. But I believe this is at the expense of physical formats and machines that can also be integral to a certain piece of art or media.
Through the huge blanket of communication created by our digital culture, people are beginning literally to take matters into their own hands, and manipulate and evolve our culture through the means of technology, at a rate never previously achieved.