Reflections upon a week engaged in making, - and Walter Benjamin.

Having already decided through a series of drawings of the fragment I have chosen, from the face of the garden gnome, I was lucky enough to have a tutorial again with Dr Dale Holmes.

I described how I was able to create a mesh foundation for my artefact, by using chicken wire, together with a hamster's plastic exercise ball, to provide a perfect half sphere shape in order to mould the cheeks and cheekbones of my garden gnome. Dr Holmes was able to suggest that I looked at the film "Guardians of the Galaxy", written by James Dunn & Nicole Perlman, (© Disney © Disney•Pixar © & ™ Lucasfilm LTD © Marvel, 2014), in which he was reminded of the central theme of part of the film in which the protagonists are effectively mining artefacts from the fragments of ancient beings.

Dr Holmes was also interested in the image as I was, in that its movement from a horizontal to vertical plane would change it from what can be seen as a democratic, (in the horizontal plane) to a totalitarian (in the vertical plane) form if it were to be transferred from its current state lying upon the table, to be hung on the wall. This is a direct reference from the works of Walter Benjamin and his book  "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936).

I decided that this would be a good source of information to review during my weekend, and so the following summaries and conclusions have been taken from this great reference document.
The document starts with a quotation "the conquest of ubiquity" by Paul Valery, which in essence, suggests our understanding and treatment of art must change as our cultures change at any point in time, as each is contemporaneous, and our practices and abilities at any point in time, together with the technology of is such changes with it.

Much of the discussion is immersed in the 1930s cultural arguments of Marxism, which I assume provides contrast to the emerging fascism of Germany, and the capitalism emerging in the West. Whilst for a history student, this provides an interesting hypothesis in its own right, this preface is really a kind of introduction to the rest of the paper, which is really concerned with how we appreciate art in the modern age, and by modern all the inferences of modernism can be understood through it.
The work also discusses how art has been ultimately about representation, and that representation follows a mimetic engagement. The various means of human endeavours to recreate the same image, whether this is through creating a sculpture in the mould, creating bronze or plaster representations, together with the use of wood blocks and engraving, then the emergence of copperplate etching and lithography turning into the, again mimetic ideals of photography, shows that this underlying need to copy and represent the things that surround us is not just a modern endeavour at all, but has been a fundamental drive in the various types of production of artworks over the last 2000 years.
Within this, the idea of copying and authenticity starts to emerge. Benjamin talks in terms of "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 it happens to be". By doing this, he highlights the important point that the original, whatever it is, is totally separate in existence as that of a copy. However, when a copy is made, it is as though something of value is taken away from the original.

The original has its own "aura", an interesting word in itself, particularly now, in our multiracial and cosmopolitan view of the world, because I am given to understand that in Arabic, the word "awrah" refers to our "private parts". When Muslim women, for instance, cover their faces with a veil, they are covering their awrah, the oft' misunderstanding by Westerners who do not appreciate the privacy of 'awrah' seems almost obvious.

This idea, that when something is gazed upon, (which 'holds' its own aura), can be extended to something I came across during some of my earlier world travels. - In some countries, it was very much frowned upon, especially by older women (as in the more remote parts of Greece, Turkey and even in Italy when I travelled there too), to take a photograph of them in any way.  They felt that something would be 'taken' from them.  Is this the same sense of 'part' of their aura being taken away, I wonder?  If there is a commonality here, it may explain a lot, and I now more fully respect and sympathise with the Muslim customs, and also with the other beliefs of privacy, as discussed.

Conclusions;

And back to the point.
As our culture develops, Benjamin points out that our own perception is changed, "not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well".
- This in itself, when combined with the observation of the word aura and perhaps it's entomology and "awrah" can account for many things of misunderstandings between East and West...?

I wonder if anyone else may have considered this link between "aura" and the Arabic word "awrah" before?...  This seems an interesting point to explore, even if it may be a diversion or red-herring... It's still worth pursuing, even if it is only to eliminate it