Footprints: Between indicative persistance and uncertainty

Open Access

Abstract

In his well-known essay "The Work of Art in Its Age of Mechanical Reproduction", written in 1936, Walter Benjamin binds the decisive and radical transformation of the XIXth Century art theory with the transition experienced by the images (of art) from cult to exhibition value (Benjamin, 2008). This alteration would have been managed by the historical apparition of photography and film as modes of production and reproduction of images. Their outspring would impose a new regime in the way the world (not just the art world) is experienced, which would postpone the auratic distance of rituals while leaving room for politics.