Wednesday, January 21, 2004
We all like to believe we're part of an elite, but we're all part of the mass dept.
"The definition of the cultural industry based on large audiences derives from the old Frankfurt school. Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno understood the cultural industry as mass culture. In his famous article The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936), Benjamin wrote that the growing significance of masses in society leads to the acceptance of reproductions in the arts and to the withering of the original artwork's "aura", its presence in time and space, its unique existence at a certain place. The nature of art changes under the influence of the masses. Reproduction and technical tools destroy the authenticity of the work of art.
For Adorno, too, the cultural industry was a culture of the masses in his writings which have been collected into Culture Industry. Selected Essays on Mass Culture. By criticising mass culture, he wanted to defend the autonomy of the arts, which he thought was threatened. Adorno had no great expectations as regards the public. Subdued by mass culture and renouncing its individuality, the public is a collective recipient of art, and adherence to the collective is largely determined by the desire to belong to a group and to consume."
More than that, too, "On the Definition of the Cultural Industry"
¶ 1/21/2004 05:47:00 PM
"The definition of the cultural industry based on large audiences derives from the old Frankfurt school. Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno understood the cultural industry as mass culture. In his famous article The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936), Benjamin wrote that the growing significance of masses in society leads to the acceptance of reproductions in the arts and to the withering of the original artwork's "aura", its presence in time and space, its unique existence at a certain place. The nature of art changes under the influence of the masses. Reproduction and technical tools destroy the authenticity of the work of art.
For Adorno, too, the cultural industry was a culture of the masses in his writings which have been collected into Culture Industry. Selected Essays on Mass Culture. By criticising mass culture, he wanted to defend the autonomy of the arts, which he thought was threatened. Adorno had no great expectations as regards the public. Subdued by mass culture and renouncing its individuality, the public is a collective recipient of art, and adherence to the collective is largely determined by the desire to belong to a group and to consume."
More than that, too, "On the Definition of the Cultural Industry"
¶ 1/21/2004 05:47:00 PM
