This paper explores the concept of aura in mass-reproduced art forms such as film and photography. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's 1935 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," it examines how Benjamin defines aura as the unique quality of an artwork that derives from its historical, cultural, and ritual context. According to Benjamin, mass reproduction diminishes aura by detaching art from its cult value, leading to its democratization. However, media scholar Johnathan Rozenkrantz challenges the idea that aura is lost, suggesting that individual interpretations recontextualize and restore aura through personal experience. This paper argues that while the original aura may shift, it persists in subjective responses to mass-produced art. Through analysis of Tarkovsky’s Mirror and various photographs, the paper demonstrates how aura is generated in film and photography, reshaping art’s purpose from cult value to exhibition value, and ultimately democratizing artistic experience.

Yichen Wang. Study on Aura in Replica Arts. Frontiers in Art Research (2024) Vol. 6, Issue 11: 23-28. https://doi.org/10.25236/FAR.2024.061104.

[1] Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1969, 4, https://web.mit. edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf

[2] Johnathan Rozenkrantz, “The Aura in the Age of New Materialism,” Film International, November 5 2012, https://filmint.nu/the-aura-in-the-age-of-new-materialism/

[3] Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1982), accessed September 11, 2024, https://monoskop.org/images/c/c5/Barthes_Roland_Camera_Lucida_Reflections_on_Photography.pdf, 43

[4] Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting In Time, accessed September 11, 2024, https://monoskop.org/ images/d/dd/ Tarkovsky_Andrey_Sculpting_in_Time_Reflections_on_the_Cinema.pdf, 117

[5] Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 1995 (University of Michigan Press), Internet Archive, accessed July 27, 2003,1, https://archive.org/details/simulacra-and-simulation-1995-university-of-michigan-press