In Walter Benjamin's 1936 groundbreaking
essay "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction," he establishes a focus on the senses in the subject's
perception. This move anticipates Affect
Theory, the field of study that examines
the physiological role of emotion and
sensation of non-linguistic forces and
this description characterizes what
Benjamin calls "aura." Aura for Benjamin
is not necessarily ephemeral but
visceral. This word describes the kind of
embodied seeing that Benjamin celebrates. it is a spirit that brings soul eye and
hand together to intensify the
impression. This spirit - this aura
influences his posture not just toward
art but the world. In artistic
representations like photographs, for
example, it is possible to apprehend what
he calls the optical unconscious
"It is through photography that we first
discover the existence of this optical
unconscious just as we discover the
instinctual unconscious through
psychoanalysis." In other words,
it is possible to see one's deepest and
darkest desires
represented in a photo or on the screen
paving the way for this focus on
sensation. Henri Bergson,  a French
philosopher famous for debating Albert
Einstein and a contemporary of Benjamin,
emphasizes the perceived difference
between felt time and clock time.
Benjamin expands Bergson's new mode of
perception to include an aura of
authenticity that prompts "the adjustment
of reality to the masses and of the
masses to reality." One way the masses
learned to adjust to reality is through
what Freud called sublimation.
Freud taught us that civilization's
neurotic tendencies are turned into
symptoms and this is precisely the role
that cinema plays. It represents this
symptom of the culture's neurotic
tendency in the same way a dream might
for the individual. Technology, a word
that combines the delicate relationship
between art and intuition, grows
increasingly more complex with cinematic
advances. After filmmakers create the
space for past and present to collide,
spectators both apprehend and write
history in the act of viewing it.
Benjamin's Caesarea and the movement of thought produces effects that make up
histories when a scene of a film is cut.
The potential for interpretation follows.
One of the revolutionary aspects of film
came from the way this medium requires
both distraction and concentration
on the part of the viewer. "A man
who concentrates before work of art is
absorbed by it." As a result the
symptom swallows civilization. This
absorption works on several levels:
though the distraction and concentration
required to consume cinema requires a
new mode of perception, in the same way
Benjamin challenges readers to bring
past and present together to form a new
concept of history, he anticipates the
way movement that is often
unacknowledged in apprehending visuals
is absorbed in a way that becomes
unconscious material. Not only does the
work of art display unconscious material,
the cycle of material production feeds
the symptom back to the viewer. Aura is
the mark of authenticity contained in a
work of art. It is a quality that cannot
be reproduced and so there is a kind of
privilege of the original. Walter
Benjamin writes "Even the most
perfect reproduction of a work of art is
lacking in one element its presence in
time and space. Its unique existence at
the place where
happens to be." His concern is
with the very act of thinking that
transforms as a result of apprehending a
work of art. While in some sense film
provides the tactile quality that
Benjamin is after, it simultaneously
compromises the viewers thought life as
Georges Duhamel points out "My
thoughts have been replaced by moving
images." When telling a story we must
create a picture in the mind that is so
vivid we can touch it and film is by far
the most effective medium for achieving
Benjamin's aura.
