Throughout the course, I have noticed bits and pieces of Theodore Adorno and Walter Benjamin’s ideas of art popping up through modern day art and other things in daily life. In particular, I would like to look at our modern-day reality game shows to relate their theories to.
Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” discusses how film changes the way people interact. “The artistic performance of the screen actor… is presented to the audience via a piece of equipment, a film camera” (Benjamin 17). To Benjamin, this is a major issue as it mediates the actor’s performance and keeps the actor from being able to alter the performance towards the audience. Because of this, the film can be changed however the producers see fit and there is little interaction. This takes away from the aura of the art.
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The reproducted art is predictable for this reason. Art has “eternal sameness; everywhere the changes mask a skeleton which has changed just as little as the profit motive itself” (Adorno 100). The idea behind this is that the producers see that something is working well, so let’s keep making it the same way to appeal to the consumers (aka the resources for industry). We consumers think that objects are made for us, but, in reality, we are made for them, that’s how the industry makes money and flourishes. Whatever the object produced, it could easily be seen as a slight variance from a previous thing. These ideas are so clear to see in many aspects of