Benjamin hoped masses would trade auratic art for disposable entertainment aware of technology

Evidence

What Benjamin hoped the masses would achieve was an exchange of a form of art which had an aura, i.e. which was distant and untouchable and which could to a certain extent be appreciated in an individual dream mood, for one whose aura had been destroyed, i.e. a form of art which was close at hand, which could be touched, and which could be appreciated as a diversion, as entertainment. It was an exchange of a Gartenlaube' relationship to technology for a kind of dream consciousness which would take possession of technology for the sake of humanenessthe technology of those avant-garde artists in whose buildings, pictures and stories humanity was preparing itself to survive culture, if it should be necessary’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 852

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concise definition of aura and its destruction in reproducible art.
• XREF: connects to: Benjamin framed technology as either mass salvation or catastrophic regression — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 826; Benjamin saw the masses as perceiving reproducible art through a dream-like consciousness — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 850

Broader Connections

• Benjamin saw the masses as perceiving reproducible art through a dream-like consciousness #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 850