Electronic reproduction stores images detached from context for instant mass retrieval
Evidence
‘In principle a work of art has always been reproducible,’ wrote Walter Benjamin, but mechanical reproduction ‘represents something new.’ It made concrete the poet Paul Valery’s prediction: ‘Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand.’ The consequences that Benjamin foresaw have been emphasized many times over by the advances in electronic reproduction and the capacity to store images, torn out of their actual contexts in space and time, for instantaneous use and retrieval on a mass basis. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 2153
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Benjamin’s aura argument in Chapter 23 and the aestheticization-of-politics theme Harvey develops throughout. — connects to: Postmodern art severs images from meaning into random nonrelational fragments — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 67; Photographic reproduction replaces the real building as the consumed object — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 316; Postmodern photography replaced image-to-referent matching with internal visual differentiation — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 416 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Postmodern art severs images from meaning into random nonrelational fragments
#expands(0.82) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 67 - Postmodern photography replaced image-to-referent matching with internal visual differentiation
#expands(0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 416 - Photographic reproduction replaces the real building as the consumed object
#complicates(0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 316 - Computer-displayed continuous-looking curves are actually stored sample sequences
#exemplifies(0.72) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 333