Art and Technology : Art and Mechanical Reproduction

Interesting enough, I have been learning about Mycenaean and Greek ceramics in my hand building class lately and it emphasizes on their use of molds and mass reproduction of the same forms. With this being said, the Greeks did make forms in mass production but mainly used engobes of human forms on the outside of the piece, which took a lot of time and care. Their most prominent forms were the use of "black style" and "red style" forms using decanted slip, which could both reduce and oxidize the kiln in order to get the preferred look of the ceramic ware. As the development of different art techniques advanced, the most obvious form of reproduction that completely shaped the path of this mass production was the use of print. It is crazy to think about how before printing was available people had to rewrite everything that was created if they wanted there to be numerous duplicates of it. However, I did not know that lithography was a very important turn for the advancement in the art world. Walter Benjamin states that lithography not only made it easier to duplicate pieces but also grasped expressing genre scenes within the art work. He really intrigued me when he put into perspective that reproduction of pictures could keep up in pace with the fastness of speech.

I believe that as art reproduction became more easy, it also became more pleasurable for the artist to duplicate the forms. For example, imagine Andy Warhol, the inventor of pop art, had to redraw every single campbell's soup can or every single representation of Marylin Monroe.. That would have taken him forever! I agree with Walter Benjamin that the ease in reproduction could diminish the artist's touch of it. Simply put, if an artist is using a tool such as a mold, for example, he is not putting his own individualized talent within the piece because it is just a basic reproduction of his original form. Just as Benjamin put it, "The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity. I feel that if an item can be completely duplicated to the original piece their is no uniqueness that can differentiate duplicates from the original piece. It is especially important to emphasize the fact that duplicating an object will not take as long as the original piece and therefore will not need as much artistic effort to be put into it, fading away the authenticity. I surely do not agree with people who say that if the aura of the work is there then it is just as good as the original piece. This is because it is not only the aura that makes artwork so fantastic but that actual object that creates this satisfying aura for people. This statement is not validated when talking about a natural, physical object that was not created for artwork. The artwork of this object is replicating the aura the original object exerted. For example, if someone is listening to a song that sounds like another song they like, they would not just have a likeness for the song's aura but it would revert them back to remembering the song it sounds like.

It has long been noted that our world has had remarkably talented artists from the beginning of time. So does this bring into question if there can ever be an artwork that is completely unique and has not been derived from a previous idea? Of course they're can be, although it may be difficult to fully not use any ideas from previous pieces. I believe this is where people don't take other people's ideas but instead manipulate them into a new and maybe modern or improved way.

Rewinding back to when I spoke of Andy Warhol and his use of replicating the same form but with minor differentiations and maybe even colors.. I am going to post some of his pieces that began the path of pop art to establish its name. These pieces are currently being held in the official Andy Warhol Museum.