Aura is the semblance of distance in an object however close it is
Evidence
What is aura, actually? A strange weave of space and time: the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how close the object may be. While resting on a summer’s noon, to trace a range of mountains on the horizon, or a branch that throws its shadow on the observer, until the moment or the hour become part of their appearancethat is what it means to breathe the aura of those mountains, that branch. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 846
What is aura, actually? A strange weave of space and time: the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how close the object may be. While resting on a summer’s noon, to trace a range of mountains on the horizon, or a branch that throws its shadow on the observer, until the moment or the hour become part of their appearancethat is what it means to breathe the aura of those mountains, that branch. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 225
Categorization
- DEFINE: Benjamin’s canonical definition of aura as ‘the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how close the object may be’ — the key reference sentence for the concept.
- XREF: Connects to Benjamin’s aura concept being the load-bearing term for the whole Frankfurt School media/culture critique, and to later debates in photography theory (Barthes, Sontag) about the medium’s relation to the unique. — connects to: Aura means endowing a phenomenon with the power to look back — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 164; Objects retain aura when the marks of human labor remain visible on them — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 208; Observation quality, not physical distance, determines whether an object feels near or far — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 817 (+1 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: Benjamin’s canonical definition, worded exactly, worth returning to for days of thinking about art, mediation, and presence.
- APHORISMS: The summer-noon mountain passage reads as contemplative counsel about how to breathe the aura of things.
- corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 846; Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 225
Broader Connections
- Aura means endowing a phenomenon with the power to look back
#expands(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 164 - Observation quality, not physical distance, determines whether an object feels near or far
#qualifies(0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 817 - Objects retain aura when the marks of human labor remain visible on them
#expands(0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 208 - Strangeness is a specific proportion of nearness and distance
#expands(0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 403