The art of mechanical reproduction

The purpose of this book is to explore the potential of new technological situations not only for attacking established aesthetical systems, but also for instituting new ones. This study shows how new artistic values may emerge directly from changing technological conditions, and how these new aesthetics may offer us insights into our current technological situation, as well as insights into a possible future. These issues are explored through an examination of the art of mechanical reproduction, meaning both the transformation of art-making and viewing by new technologies, and the liquidation of inherited cultural tradition brought about by the advent of technological production and technologically supported mass culture in the early twentieth century.