Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
#walterbenjamin #illuminations #technologicalreproducibility #technologicalage
đ Substack post mentioned: open.substack.com/pub/communityphilosophy/p/bodies-of-stars-meeting-in-outer?r=3qslz0&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
âď¸ Link to the piece mentioned: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Benjamin_Walter_1936_2008_The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Its_Technological_Reproducibility_Second_Version.pdf
đ Hey everyone, it's Andrea. Quick video to introduce you to Walter Benjamin. Looks like Benjamin, if you've never heard of him. I found that students are really getting something from this essay that he wrote way back called " "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductionâ or Technological Reproducibility." And I'm going to link to that in the show notes, but I want to recommend it because first of all, Walter Benjamin is just a really interesting person. I wrote a blog about it, which you can also find in the show notes if you wanna know more about him and how his philosophy has inspired constellatory thinking.
But here I just wanna introduce you to this work in that At, at some point, artwork existed in one place. Like, you went to see a painting or you went to a temple or there was a ritual sort of object that got passed around, and it had this spatial presence in history that was actually, continuous, right?
It was there and you went there or it was with you and it moved. And then we developed technology where we could reproduce things and You could reproduce a painting and you could have copies of it all over the world, or you could reproduce an artwork or a book and show it to everyone all over the world.
And if you just think about what a change that was for us as humans, I think we're going through something similar right now with the way we think about language and what can happen with language. reading this essay might help some of us begin to understand that, what's happening and how it is very similar to these very big breaks that we had in the past.
But also what I think is so important about Benjamin is that even though he talks about how this is disruptive and dangerous, he also talks about it as a huge potential and possibility and transformative. And I think it's important that we, of course, hold that paradox but also realize it's there and realize that the more we understand it and consider it through these sorts of texts or historical examples, the better chance we have of transforming and finding the potential rather than dealing with the danger and the destruction of it, which we really have to watch out for too.
Benjamin was writing just before fascism and he took his own life because he thought the Nazis were about to take him. So I don't know what's happening right now in your life, but I imagine that the technological revolution we're going through right now is having some kind of effect, whether it's disturbing or exciting or both of those at once.
reading this text might help you a bit or help you-- Maybe you could do a book group â đ and just read this text. Uh, there's a wonderful book called Illuminations. Here it is. This wonderful book which Hannah Arendt pretty much made happen and writes the preface for, which I also recommend.â đ
But just if you want, start with this essay by Walter Benjamin and maybe it'll make you think about the tools that you're using and how they relate to your life and possibility a little differently.
#walterbenjamin #illuminations #technologicalreproducibility #technologicalage
đ Substack post mentioned: open.substack.com/pub/communityphilosophy/p/bodies-of-stars-meeting-in-outer?r=3qslz0&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
âď¸ Link to the piece mentioned: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Benjamin_Walter_1936_2008_The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Its_Technological_Reproducibility_Second_Version.pdf
đ Hey everyone, it's Andrea. Quick video to introduce you to Walter Benjamin. Looks like Benjamin, if you've never heard of him. I found that students are really getting something from this essay that he wrote way back called " "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductionâ or Technological Reproducibility." And I'm going to link to that in the show notes, but I want to recommend it because first of all, Walter Benjamin is just a really interesting person. I wrote a blog about it, which you can also find in the show notes if you wanna know more about him and how his philosophy has inspired constellatory thinking.
But here I just wanna introduce you to this work in that At, at some point, artwork existed in one place. Like, you went to see a painting or you went to a temple or there was a ritual sort of object that got passed around, and it had this spatial presence in history that was actually, continuous, right?
It was there and you went there or it was with you and it moved. And then we developed technology where we could reproduce things and You could reproduce a painting and you could have copies of it all over the world, or you could reproduce an artwork or a book and show it to everyone all over the world.
And if you just think about what a change that was for us as humans, I think we're going through something similar right now with the way we think about language and what can happen with language. reading this essay might help some of us begin to understand that, what's happening and how it is very similar to these very big breaks that we had in the past.
But also what I think is so important about Benjamin is that even though he talks about how this is disruptive and dangerous, he also talks about it as a huge potential and possibility and transformative. And I think it's important that we, of course, hold that paradox but also realize it's there and realize that the more we understand it and consider it through these sorts of texts or historical examples, the better chance we have of transforming and finding the potential rather than dealing with the danger and the destruction of it, which we really have to watch out for too.
Benjamin was writing just before fascism and he took his own life because he thought the Nazis were about to take him. So I don't know what's happening right now in your life, but I imagine that the technological revolution we're going through right now is having some kind of effect, whether it's disturbing or exciting or both of those at once.
reading this text might help you a bit or help you-- Maybe you could do a book group â đ and just read this text. Uh, there's a wonderful book called Illuminations. Here it is. This wonderful book which Hannah Arendt pretty much made happen and writes the preface for, which I also recommend.â đ
But just if you want, start with this essay by Walter Benjamin and maybe it'll make you think about the tools that you're using and how they relate to your life and possibility a little differently.
