Walter Benjamin undertakes a critical-historical reconstruction of the technological conditions of art.

Interviewee: Roger Behrens

In his essay Benjamin is not concerned with how fascism attacks art, with the reactionary shaming of the avant-garde, with the co-opting of art to serve Nazi purposes. What Benjamin does is something else: a critical-historical reconstruction of the technological conditions of art, both for its production and reception. These technological conditions are themselves already dependent on and permeated by society and therefore need to be, like art, understood in terms of social relationships. Benjamin discusses possible and real interrelationships between “art” and its “mechanical reproducibility” from a political perspective.