5-Timothy Nolan

The existence of film is a very intriguing idea with regard to the originality of art work. It is first of all the final phase (excluding perhaps virtual reality? We will see) of the artistic representation of real life, for it directly recreates the sound and sight of an event (smell and touch perhaps not far off?). Thus, we can see a movie as a very close representation of reality. However, this is not exactly true. The movie transfixes and absorbs the audience, places fantasies of ideas in their heads, until it ends and the audience leaves feeling that they have had an experience of what the real life situation was like. The romantic-comedy goer longs for the relationship that s/he has just seen and searches for it, the horror movie goer is creeped out and dreams of their awful experience. The idea that is not explicitly explained is that the original experience never existed. We feel like we wish we could experience (or hope we never experience) the real version of the movie, when the real experience in all actuality is the experience we just had. Thus, in the realization that the original is a fantasy, the representation becomes the reality.

This extends to painting. When someone examines a reproduction of a work of art, they are led to wonder what the real experience of seeing the work would be. However, the comparison between seeing the duplicate and the original is like comparing two completely different paintings. They inspire different thoughts and ideas, exist in different conditions, and are perceived differently. The only original form of a duplicate is the duplicate itself. Thus, originality falls apart, as every individual representation is its own reality. It is much like the first essay we read, in that an artwork should not be seen as a representation of its subject, but a new creation altogether. The same could be said for copies.

The only possible way to save the concept of originality is to create an ill-defined word such as aura, and imply a mystical quality to an original. This seems to branch into the fairy-tale-esque world, however. Ok, maybe that was a little harsh on the essay we read this week, but this is the impression I get thus far.