[-empyre-] VII

[hamed taheri <bntheatre@yahoo.com>]

I would like to interrupt my reflection on messianic
world and technological media. I will instead try to
bring some marginal comments on the dossier of
Benjamin?s ?The work of art in the age of its
technological reproducibility,? on its historical
composition and its title.  I would like to insist
that this type of approach is necessary to Benjamin?s
most oft-cited work. Otherwise our reading fails to
grasp what can it say to us, just now, in 2006, 70
years after composition of the essay.  
There is not any authentic version of this essay.
Benjamin himself never ceased regarding it as a work
in progress. The authentic reading of this essay
should assume this situation as the fate of Benjamin?s
essay and tries radically to take this situation into
account. This essay contains a lacuna. It is worth
reflecting upon this lacuna, which calls into question
oft-readings of the essay and, along with it, casts
light on the precise constellation of Benjamin?s
ideas. 
There are three versions from this essay: 
First version (1935): It was composed in Paris in the
autumn of 1935. The essay first appeared in the
Zeitschrift?in a significantly abbreviated French
translation by Pierre Klossowski?the following year.
Second version (1936): Meanwhile, work on the German
version drafted in September and October continued
into December, at which point Benjamin began rewriting
the whole essay and, after a conversation with
Horkheimer (who was in Paris in mid-December), adding
footnotes. This second German version, which also
incorporated suggestions from Adorno regarding the
political-philosophical argument, was completed by the
beginning of February 1936 (the form in which Benjamin
originally wished to see the work published.)
Third version (1936-1939): Benjamin soon afterward
initiated a further rewrite, which stretched on until
March or April of 1939.It was this third and final
version that formed the basis of the first publication
of the essay in German in 1955 and the starting point
proper for its subsequently widespread dissemination.

It was Horkheimer who had stipulated that the essay on
technological reproducibility appear in the
Zeitschrift in French translation?a condition to which
Benjamin was amenable, since he now resided in France.
Benjamin spent two weeks in intensive collaboration
with the translator Pierre Klossowski, dealing with
the ?unusual difficulties of the translation,? and
later in February could pronounce himself pleased
overall with the finished product, even though its
language had a more ?doctrinaire? feel to it than did
that of the German original. 
Meanwhile, the work-of-art essay, in French
translation, was undergoing abridgment at the
institute?s editorial offices. Benjamin first got wind
of this, after a telephone conversation with Hans
Klaus Brill, secretary of the institute?s Paris
bureau, and he immediately posted a lengthy letter to
Horkheimer, vehemently protesting what he regarded as
Brill?s unwarranted ?intervention? in the already
copyedited manuscript of his essay, an action
undertaken, moreover, ?behind my back?. About two
weeks later, he was able to gauge the precise extent
of this intervention, when he received the galley
proofs for his article; deleted from the text were not
just a few passages, as he initially believed, but the
entire opening section (which is concerned with Marx
and the ?political struggle? of the ?proletariat?).
The French text was now shorter than the German by
approximately one-third. He sent off another letter to
Horkheimer, complaining that Brill had ignorantly
exceeded his editorial authority and expressing the
hope that Horkheimer, from New York, would set him
straight. Horkheimer?s answer, on March 18, backed
Brill?s actions in no uncertain terms, making it clear
that the decision on the cuts had originated with
Horkheimer himself. Benjamin quickly fell into line.
He sent a telegram to Horkheimer agreeing to the
changes and, the next day, wrote a contrite and
circumspect letter, in which he acknowledges the
?special conditions? underlying the mission of the
Zeitschrift, apologizes to Horkheimer for
necessitating any additional labor through his own??I
hope, pardonable??misunderstanding, and thanks him for
the explanations offered in a spirit of ?friendly
collaboration.? This was followed, at the end of
March, by another letter expressing his deep regret
for entire incident and his hope that ?the institute?s
former trust in me will be restored.? 
Why did Horkheimer decide to cut the essay?
Why did Benjamin vehemently protest the cuts?
Why did he, apologizing Horkheimer, fall in line and
why did he ask for restoration of the institute?s
former trust in him?
Note: Recall here that Benjamin wrote this essay in
the shadow of his financial distress. In February
(1936), Benjamin?s friend and fellow critic Bernhard
Reich had written from Moscow to say that he could not
recommend the essay to the journal International
Literature, as Benjamin has wished, because he found
it ?too wide-ranging? and hard to follow. In May, the
institute?s assistant director, Friedrich Pollock,
abandoned plans to use the essay for a publicity drive
for the Zeitschrift, explaining to Benjamin that it
was ?too bold,? and ?in many years much too
problematic,? to represent the interests of the
institute before the public. And despite comparatively
high hopes, Benjamin?s efforts over the summer to get
the piece published in Das Wort in Moscow came to
nothing.

Adorno, more or less simultaneously with the approval
of the last-minute cuts to the French translation,
criticized the argument of the work-of-art essay. At
the end of February, Benjamin had sent Adorno a
typescript of the second version of the German text,
observing, in an accompanying letter. Adorno wrote
back on March 18. ?You underestimate the technicity of
autonomous art,? he writes in summary, ?and
overestimate that of utilitarian art.? Adorno
attributed this demonizing of aesthetic autonomy to
the influence of Brecht, and, after rehearsing his own
views on the reactionary tendency of ?utilitarian?
forms such as popular film and jazz, he concluded by
characterizing what he felt was his personal task
vis-à-vis his friend: ?to hold your arm steady until
the Brechtian sun has finally sunk beneath its exotic
waters.
Why did Adorno approve the last-minute cuts?
How should we reflect upon Adorno?s statement that
Benjamin underestimates the technicity of autonomous
art and overestimates that of utilitarian art?

In a letter of late August, Gershom Scholem included
brief thanks to Benjamin for sending and offprint of
the essay, making it clear enough that he felt little
enthusiasm for its subject matter. 

Why did Scholem feel little enthusiasm for its subject
matter?
Or, why Scholem who can proposes a remarkable reading
of a brief prose work by Benjamin in ?Walter Benjamin
and his Angle? could not crystallize the gesture of
Angle in the work-of-art essay?

Among these early responses to the essay, Benjamin
showed himself especially pleased with that of Alfred
Cohn, who had been impressed by ?how organically this
work develops out of your earliest writings.? In his
reply, Benjamin acknowledged the work?s ?continuity
with my earlier studies, in spite of its new and
surely oft-surprising tendency,? and, in a key
formulation, he locates the basis for this continuity
of concern in ?the fact that, over the years, I have
tried to achieve an increasingly precise and
uncompromising idea of what constitutes a work of
art.?   
It?s the task of every reading of the essay to pause
on this continuity with Benjamin?s earlier studies.

Once, Benjamin said the essays ?Edward Fuches,
Collector and Historian? (1937) and ?The work of art
in the age of its technological reproducibility?
(1936) are contributions to the sociology of visual
arts. 
What is the interrelation of these two essays? 
How, in what sense and context, should we crystallize
the gestures of collector and historian in the
work-of-art essay?

 The German?s title of essay is ?Das Kunstwerk im
Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit.? The
title itself is a constellation of different
Benjamin?s ideas, and it is not difficult to show that
all misunderstandings of the essay are a symptom of
the failure to grasp this constellation of gestures.
The problem in English translation of the title bears
witness to this failure (mechanical
reproduction/technological reproducibility). Let me
write the title with long hyphen: ?Das kunstwerk?im
Zeitalter?seiner technischen?Reproduzierbarkeit.? 

Das Kunstwerk (The work of art): In the mentioned
constellation, it clearly crystallizes the idea of
work of art. 

im Zeitalter (in the age): In the mentioned
constellation, it crystallizes the idea of
dream/awakening (Traum und Erwachen.)
The first recorded mention of this essay is in a
letter of October 9 to Gretel Karpus: ?In these last
weeks, I have come to recognize that hidden structural
character ? in the present state of art which makes it
possible to recognize what for us is decisive ? in the
fate of art in the nineteenth century. In this regard,
I have realized my theory of knowledge?which is
crystallized around the very esoteric concept of the
now of recognizability?in a decisive example. I have
found that aspect of nineteenth-century art which only
NOW is recognizable, as it never was before and never
will be afterward.? 
One week later, he wrote to Horkheimer ?If the subject
of the book on the arcades is the fate of art in the
nineteenth century, this fate has something to say to
us only because it is contained in the ticking of a
clock whose striking of the hour has just reached our
ears. What I mean by this is that art?s fateful hour
has struck, and I have captured its signature in a
series of preliminary reflections entitled ?Das
Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit.?

seiner technischen (of its technological): In the
mentioned constellation, it crystallizes the idea of
knowledge (Wissen). 
What does Benjamin mean by technology? 
Reproduzier/barkeit (reproduct/ibility):
Why did Benjamin use Reproduzier/barkeit and not
?Reproduktion?? What will happen if we think Benjamin
composed himself the essay under the title ?Das
Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduktion? and not ?Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter
seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit?? 
It?s precisely this reproductibility (possibility to
reproduce or not reproduce, contingency of
reproduction) that discerns Benjamin?s system of
reflection from that of Adorno and Horkheimer. If
Horkheimer decided to cut the essay, if Adorno
approved the last-minute cuts, it?s only because their
Hegelian system couldn?t grasp the enigma of this
title and if Scholem felt little enthusiasm for its
subject matter, it?s only because he couldn?t grasp
the precise meaning of reproducibility as contingency
of reproduction. The technological reproducibility is
to technological (or mechanical) reproduction what
negative theology is to positive theology. While the
positive theology affirms and predicates determinate
qualities of God, negative theology, with its ?neither
? nor,? negates and suspends the attribution to God of
any predicate whatsoever. Yet negative theology is not
outside theology and can actually be shown to function
as the principle grounding the possibility in general
of anything like a theology. Technological
reproducibility can make the incomplete (happiness)
complete, and the complete (pain) incomplete. This
possibility is a open gate on which messiah might
enter.   


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