Aura. Four Essays on Photography. Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin’s contribution to the theory of photography is contained in just four key essays, which are collected in this volume: “News about Flowers,” “A Brief History of Photography,” “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” and “The Paris Letter. Painting and Photography.” In them, the philosopher reflects on the power of this medium to transform consciousness, memory, the perception of reality, and therefore political reality. Central to the philosopher’s thinking is the concept of aura—the unique presence and authenticity of a work of art that photography undermines through mechanical reproducibility. However, this loss of aura is ambivalent: it weakens tradition and ritual while at the same time opening art to mass access and political intervention.