Benjamin and animals

I have actually read bits of Walter Benjamin’s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in a few different classes; it is really interesting to apply his ideas to yet another context. The development of photography and film has and continues to change our perspective on animals.

One of Benjamin’s main ideas in this piece is that mechanical reproduction diminishes the aura of a piece of work. By aura he means the unique place where this piece of art exists. In this case, I see the animal itself as being the aura of a picture. The aura of a picture of a cat online is the cat itself. Video gets a little more complex, the aura is both the cat itself and the time and place where the event occurred.

Although a picture or a video cannot fully represent the complexity of any creature, its obvious that photo and especially video technology have helped us understand animals in ways we couldn’t before. For this reason I believe that these technologies have done more to enhance the aura of an animal than take away from it. Rather than rely on one person’s written interpretation of an animal’s behavior and appearance, we can see for ourselves.

Muybridge’s locomotion studies are another example of mechanical reproduction enhancing our perspective of animals. Simple questions like whether all four of a horse’s legs are off the ground at one time would not be possible without the ability to get a still perspective.

Of course, there are situations when the representation can be deceptive and damaging to the aura of the animal but we have gained so much more from these technologies.