Summary of main points:
The woodcut from the early 1400's represents the earliest form of the reproducible image. Later came engravings, etchings in the sixteenth century and in the eighteenth century, the lithograph. Which for those times was a huge invention resulting in faster drawings and better quality of prints. Now of course there are many forms of technical produced images. There is photography, cinema films, television and most recently the Internet and web. All of these forms have had there affects on art, the world, culture and modernity. It may have been thought that with the next new invention of a way to create technical images would lead to an extinction of the previous ways. However, in art and the media, every creation still holds it's place in one way or another. For example, the television is a way for us to receive our news, however during the time of 9/11 newspaper sales went up because television doesn't do the same exact job as the newspaper and the photographs. As the article states, "Different media complement rather than replace one another. In the case of the current events, television gives the viewer as sense of participation almost as the events unfold, whereas the written word and printed photographic image provide relative permanence and hence carry more authority" (200). Today, because there are so many technically reproduced and produced images around us it has affected our notion of reality, into a state of 'hyperreality'. T.V and cinema largely affect this. T.V is such a hug part of American culture that we are incredibly and perhaps unknowingly greatly affected by it, thus concerning Baudrillards statement regarding 'the dissolution of TV into life and life into T.V'. Also in film and television we, the audience, are seeing everything repeated, similar ideas, story lines, plots, meaning etc. Everything is recycled, but everything is pushed further in order to keep up the viewers excitement. What may have seemed provocative 40 years ago, could be thought of as boring today, and culturally what we are viewing is setting the tone for our society.
Another aspect of 'hyperreality' is being able to experience something without actually experiencing it. You may feel you know Rome, because you have seen pictures or viewed it on T.V, but you have never been there, never smelled it, tasted the food, encountered the culture and history, but yet you feel you know Rome. This is very true about art in the same regards. Many people would say they know Michelangelo's The Sistine Chapel, yet few could say they have actual been physically there and witnessed it first hand. The reproduction of art through technological advances has its pluses and minuses. The artist's work because of this can have a greater audience then they ever imagined. The masses can be able to view such things even if they do not have the privilege of experiencing them first hand. But, it is true that the 'aura' of the work can be lost by not witnessing it firsthand. But what is worse, to never witness at all, or to witness reproduced? Also art can be reproduced in a different context. It can be turned into something completely different then attended. Art can be reproduced and brought into popular culture and then having a market value, where the 'aura' is actually intensified in terms of commodity fetishism.
Personal reflection:
I agree that different media complement rather than replace. If even their intentions are to do relatively the same thing, the outcome is different, therefore they both are needed or retain their importance. However, I feel that with the last decade's explosion of technology it is compromising other media forms. The Internet, could be used to replace nearly everything, beside the experience. You can watch movies on the web, watch T.V on the web, view art on the web, read articles, news, you can even create art on the computer. I just fear that the place for the artist will be lost. We have already explored the loss of the author and this is very true because of technical reproduction. Don't get me wrong, I love the availability, but in a way I do feel that technical reproduction and technical production is killing the old paint and canvas. It also helps to spread the revenue and audience but the demand for technological images is calling for flat copy of something multidimensional. Technical reproduction opens many doors and closes some windows. I feel it subtracts from the grittiness of the work, the fingerprints of the audience, but yet it is able to help the art commercially. In our daily lives I feel we are so bombarded by technological media that we are loosing authenticity and being emerged into a solely technical world.
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