A link on MSN to "Ten Dresses We'll Never Forget" helped me explain Benjamin's concept of "aura" to myself.I clicked, and among the dresses chosen as epic was a short, off-the-shoulder black velvet dress Diana, Princess of Wales wore on the evening Prince Charles admitted infidelity on British television.
Clothing helped me conceptualize aura as the "shell" ("to pry an object from it's shell, to destroy its' aura...(p. 1236)) of presence surrounding a piece based on a moment in time and on the essence of the artist extended in the piece itself:
The dress Diana wore on that particular evening was off the rack,
so it was mechanically reproduced, but much more went into the "moment,"
so that it can't technically be reproduced. No model is exactly like Diana, and
even if someone made themselves up to impersonate her, still, her essence
(what K.K. Campbell might refer to as "techne" or
"metis" (Campell, p. 6)) can't be exactly replicated and are components of "aura" as well.
Even if a performing artist wore the same dress and accessorized it with,
say, Converse high-tops and striped socks, to some, the dress would still be remembered from its "original" context and seen as only a part of a different statement.("technical repreduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself" (p. 1235)...and yet, "It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual (our habitual) function (association) "(p. 1236)).
I'm taking this to say that, no matter how close we get to a reproduction
or even to an original, a work or a piece of art will for a long time maintain an unbreachable distance based on the "moment" in time for which it is known in culture, and on the personal essence (creative aspects, flair) with which the artist infuses it.
So, Kimberly, it seems like you're pointing out a very complicated but sometimes useful aspect of aura.
ReplyDeleteThe dress that Diana wore could never be duplicated, but she did give it meaning. You made me think of an original as a blank slate. The designer of that dress probably had inspiration, but the inspiration doesn't matter much once it's produced and sold. Let's say Diana walked into a dress shop and bought this dress for this particular event (well, somebody did). She bought it, wore it, and all of a sudden this dress has meaning and that meaning makes it an original. The dress never really got to be an original since it was off the rack, but all of a sudden it gets significance and can't be copied.
This is useful because someone can use that significance. Princess Diana has created a new sign (or symbol, depending how much you want to think about it) that can give meaning to something else. If the performing artist you mentioned would really wear that dress and high tops, the dress could help that artist to make some sort of a statement about his or her own work based off of the aura that Princess Diana gave to it.
It seems like with your example of clothing, aura might have a lot to do with agency as well. If aura is highly dependent on moment, and because of that no aura can ever be the same, then agency would also run along those lines as well. People can try to reproduce, mimic, or extend the discussion, so to speak, on the black dress that Princess Diana was wearing at that particular moment in time, but Princess Diana herself will always hold the most agency because it is her aura that will be most referred back to and worked off of. She is the baseline to go from, the seed to branch off of. It would be easy to connect the same with authorship and writing. This may be a stretch on my part, but I thought that the connection that you made was very intriguing.
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