Da Vinci's Untimely Demise

-- By ArthurMuszynski - 10 Nov 2017

A Scene at the Louvre

A throng of acquisitive museum patrons assembles around the exquisite Renaissance work, each fiercely vying for a satisfactory spot from which to view it. Yet what was formerly an object of the purest contemplation has undergone a radical transformation, having since become no more than an item in some execrable scavenger hunt. Indeed, the rapacious audience has not gathered to appreciate the painting in its timeless splendor, but to capture its countenance. The alacrity on display is not borne by a desire for a vantage point from which to best study the art, but rather to provide evidence in support of that trite declaration made to one’s social media cohort: “I was here, I saw this.” Yes, you were undeniably there—physically.

Mechanical Reproduction’s Wicked Effects

Perhaps the most familiar critique against the practice of disseminating copies of visual artwork—such as, for instance, paintings and sculptures, but not books, films, and music—is Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In it, Benjamin argues that the replication of unique works robs them of their authority—their aura. The act of mechanical capture—e.g., the shutter of the camera—exerts an adulterating influence over the work and its newly-rendered facsimiles, no matter the degree to which the copy mirrors the parent. The reproduction cannot, as Benjamin claims, be contemplated; the distractive pressure inherent in the replica, brought about by the very introduction of a third person, the replicator, indelibly taints all experience of the work.

Compounding Benjamin’s anxieties, a still more devastating force has emerged: so-called “social media,” which has functionally enabled (and mobilized) all of mankind to become mechanical reproducers, iProduct in tow. Because the compulsion to broadcast one’s affairs to one’s circles has achieved a consensus, the very act of aesthetic contemplation is suffering an excruciating demise. Because the sentiment that one must procure evidence of his every experience—else it did not really occur—is uniformly internalized, what were formerly unique works at the pinnacle of human achievement have become mere collectibles; what were formerly organic experiences of these works have become synthetic and mundane encounters. In short, art is very near death, and technology is primarily responsible: thus, the horrifying image above.

Anti-Social Media

Bertrand Russell blithely wrote that “there are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.” The same can be truly said of visual works of art: the principal reasons behind their pursuit have been and remain the pleasure derived from observing them and the pleasure derived from signaling to others that one did so. However, in the Age of Social Media, these driving forces have taken a very sinister form. As the effort associated with aesthetic contemplation has yielded to the effort to pictorially relay one’s having been there, as the eyes have been diverted from the canvas to the camera, the “enjoyment” of which Russell wrote has been unequivocally corrupted. The focus has shifted from the work itself to the production of a new, pernicious work: the “I Was Here.” Thus, the pleasure that formerly resulted from the act of viewing has been subsumed under the pleasure from the boast and its by-products: the likes, re-tweets, and subscribes. Perhaps the chief driver behind robust museum admissions is just these ills—certainly it cannot be the cultivation of aesthetic sensibilities catalyzing sales, as that exercise has been completely upended!

Social media undoubtedly encourages many of our most anti-social impulses, from wanton envy to unbounded greed. Most regrettably, visual art has been roped into this destructive enablement as an innocent victim. The work of art has become a backdrop by which the artificer paints precisely the image of himself he wishes to convey: as one who “appreciates” art. This manipulation of the work to one’s benefit, to disingenuously portray oneself as something one is not with the help of advanced smoke and mirrors, is appalling. Indeed, it is an abomination surpassing the imaginations of all of our Orwells and our Huxleys, our Bradburys and our Benjamins.

A Cure?

Is art’s ailment terminal? Are we to capitulate to these disastrous forces, to lament our lot and to begin at once the composition of our elegies? Or are we—i.e., those unfortunate enough to understand the death we are witnessing—instead to withdraw from the crowd and the conversation, to ourselves consume art as it was meant to be done and to shy away from social media and those under its control? I am convinced that neither is proper, that art (and ourselves!) are worth salvaging. But in the face of what appears to be an inexorable hegemony of social media, I am utterly devoid of solutions.

But it wasn't art that suffered here, just the life of those who aren't seeing it. And almost everyone didn't see it before, only in a different way than they don't see it now. We haven't established that most peoples' relationship to art was better when the museum was dusty, lonely, populated most of the time by a few art students, sketching. So far as the "pics or it didn't happen" ethos is concerned, art isn't any different than food, which is also photographed to prove it was consumed. But because Walter Benjamin wasn't a food writer, there's no theorist to bring boastfully into our conversation to indicate the sophisticated nature of the problem.

I think the real point is about people, not about art, in other words. People have less interiority, on their way to having none, so that there is no place inside from which to experience what one sees, or eats, or listens to, or---actually and, and, and---thinks about. Interior experiences of recognition, wonder, meditation, self-scrutiny and growth are increasingly replaced, reflexively, by exterior behavior, of "sharing." This behavior is in turn surveilled, monetized, and turned into leverage for social control. But interiority, too, was affected by social privilege, requiring for its cultivation leisure and education and disciplined self-development. The subsistence worker may want transcendence (or may have wanted it) as much as the aristocrat, but she had precious little chance. The platform-attached smartphone, like the church, may be an opiate for the masses. Like the church, it can accumulate far more wealth than a carfentanyl dealer whose customers drop dead predictably. But also like the church, it may be the only domain of aesthetic engagement that most of the people are allowed.

Perhaps the very point of the essay is its primary involvement with the thing on the wall rather than the people gathered round. If so, the best route to improvement is to make that more explicit in the next draft. If not, it seems to me that the best thing that could happen would be precisely the compensating movement from the work to the worker, not Leonardo, whose demise occurred long ago, but to those working at present at being human, under difficulties, which seem likely to us both to increase.

• #Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, ArthurMuszynski
• #Set DENYTOPICVIEW = TWikiGuest

Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list.