جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "والتر بنیامین" در نشریات گروه "هنر و معماری"

New historicism represents the spirit of the last few decades of the world. This theory is the result of a post-constructivist world, a world that was once dominated by constructivism. The current viewpoint considers history as textual, and the text as historical. Also, this historical text/textual history considers the battlefield between the conflicting (challenging) thoughts of the author, society, customs, institutions, and social actions. Nietzsche's anti-positivist epistemology, Hayden White's view of history, as well as Michel Foucault's theory about history, and the presentation of concepts such as discourse, power, and knowledge, have had a significant effect on the formation of the theoretical foundations of this approach. To address the political, social, cultural, and historical contexts of the work, the new historians use the method of the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz, known as "thick description". Considering the capability of this approach in discovering social, cultural, and historical codes, it has not been used extensively for reading texts, especially those of the Iranian historical drama. Our purpose in the current research is to read critically/creatively, in a descriptive-analytical way, of the postmodern historical drama Fereshteh-ye Tarikh written by Mohammad Rezaee Rad. It is based on the approach that its most important promoter, Steven Greenbelt, considers to be practical not-(experimental); a type of practice-based research. Using the last hours of Walter Benjamin's life as a basis, Fereshteh-ye Tarikh explores the era of World War II (a time when the government was active, the nation was passive, and fascism was based on power). Through Benjamin, who played his historical role, he helped Brecht to find a new apparatus in the fight against the bourgeois way. Rezaee Rad has admitted that, based on the sixth thesis of Theses on the Concept of History written by Benyamin, he did not intend to bring the history as stated in the official sources in his play. By deviating from this real event, he intended to express his and his contemporaries' vision about the truth of that historical moment. A thought that was expressed in the moment of danger and by grasping Benjamin's memory. For this reason, he went over the small details, such as the place and manner of Benjamin's death, which took place in a hotel room in the port of Port Beau and changed them to better understand his historical era beyond the era of this last philosopher. By reading this play in the light of new historicism, other aspects of its meanings are revealed. The aspects that were brought out due to the constant movement between the text and the context, as well as with some of Benjamin's writings, such as theses about history. Referring to the current dialectic between the legitimacy of fascism or its assumption as an emergency in the present play, has led to the conclusion that Fereshteh-ye Tarikh is the basis of the discourse of the legitimacy of fascism, and therefore it is in contrast to the discourse that considers fascism as an emergency, therefore, history is linear and upward.

Problem statement: 

Traditional arts have been approached differently in terms of theoretical aspects. On the one hand, traditionalists believe in specific components of traditional arts. On the other hand, one of the important topics for contemporary theorists and art researchers is the theory of reproducibility and mechanical reproduction of art. Among the concepts, Manifestation is explored, and expanded from the perspective of thinkers, leading to challenging discussions between two schools of thought.

The aim of this article is firstly to explore the concept of manifestation from the perspective of traditionalists and Walter Benjamin, and then to identify and explain how this concept is confronted with mechanical reproduction. Therefore, this research answers the question of “how the concept of manifestation in traditional arts and its confrontation with mechanical reproduction can be articulated?”

This article employs a descriptive-analytical approach and a comparative study, along with a library-based examination of data and qualitative analysis, to clarify the concept of manifestation in the face of mechanical reproduction.

Based on the coding and analysis of the perspectives of five traditionalist thinkers and Walter Benjamin’s famous article, the constitutive components of manifestation and mechanical reproduction have been identified. According to the performed categorizations, the categories of mechanical reproduction are comparable to the categories of manifestation’s concept, which are opposite to each other except for two components. Therefore, the similarities and differences between them have led to the identification of the components of manifestation in the face of mechanical reproduction. During this process, it became clear that the concept of manifestation has two dimensions and approaches; one is related to the traditionalist perspective and Benjamin’s view, and the other is related to mechanical reproduction. Consequently, considering the comparison between the main categories of these two concepts, it is possible to distinguish the manifestation of mechanical reproduction from the manifestation envisioned by traditionalists and Benjamin, which has taken on a new form and is unavoidable.

This paper deals with one of the most influential theoretical works in the field of philosophy and the ontology of the arts in the twentieth century. The term Aura was used by the German author Walter Benjamin in his important 1936 essay "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction". Benjamin argued that ‘even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.’ He referred to this unique cultural context i.e. ‘its presence in time and space’ as its ‘aura’. Despite being widely accepted, the ideas of Benjamin in his well-known essay "The work of art…" are controversial. The most significant issue raised by Benjamin is the conceptualization of the Aura of an artwork and its decline with the help of mechanical reproduction of the works. However, the critical question is, are Benjamin’s arguments about the Aura and its decline acceptable in our day? What are the reasons for and against Benjamin’s thesis? Our purpose in this study is to critically examine the theory of Benjamin’s declining Aura, a theory that has been more widely documented in Persian sources than criticized. Given that the present paper is solely responsible for Benjamin’s views in his aforementioned essay, the research method is based on critical reading and analysis of the text, scrutiny of his logical arguments, and support from previous research by foreign scholars about the subject. Thus, library materials and resources, especially those written in English about Benjamin, form the basis of our qualitative data. In the final analysis, for several reasons, it can be concluded that the theorist of the declining Aura, although well aware of the importance of the advent of mechanical reproduction, has made serious mistakes in assessing its consequences. In our opinion, the Aura of contemporary art has not only disappeared but its dimensions and scope have become increasingly potent. Today’s Aura is not just a matter of great artistic masterpieces, but of the concept of Art itself, and of the creeds and rituals that have been shaped by late Capitalism and the economics of contemporary art. Who can deny that the Mona Lisa painting is still, and perhaps more than before, a powerful attraction that draws everyone to the Louvre Museum? Particularly today, signposts are erected throughout the museum to show the way to the curious audience, who line up to watch a small artwork for a few moments from a distance, behind a bulletproof glass case. The aura has not faded and will probably never diminish. Art is inseparable from its sacred origins. The aura, which always holds the qualities of ritual sanctity, takes on a real form in the distinction between the original and its reproductions. Therefore, there is still an aura at work today. The aesthetic judgments of the upper classes of society, which establish the cultural institution of art in the form of museums and art galleries, by framing and placing the work of art in the museum, throw a veil around it. While separating artworks from ritual origins, museums create a new ‘aura’ for art by classifying works in a specific place and time in an environment separated from the outside world. Thus, in this era, art is transferred from its original setting with religious authorities to the political-economic authorities of capitalism, with a more or less similar structure: from the church to the museum. Now the politics of the upper classes manage the affairs of the art world and shape the understanding of society. Today, the abundance of images promoted by digital mass media recreates the aura in a strange way for individuals in distant places. Mass reproduction has actually enhanced the aura in an unexpected way and multiplied the monetary value of the work up to a distant and priceless status. Last but not least is that aura would be accurately analyzed when it is considered a declaration regarding the subject of perception and not its object. If we pay attention to the fact that the aura is formed in the eyes of the beholder and does not belong to the work itself, and if we pay attention to the fact that the perception mechanisms of the beholder, even in the post-modern times, has not undergone a dramatic transformation (that is, the cult of art has replaced the former magical or religious rituals), then we will speak more cautiously about the declining of the aura.

Problem statement: 

The latest fusion between art and blockchain technology has created a new artistic movement called CryptoArt. This emerging method, which has recently attracted the art world’s attention, requires exceptional understanding and reading.The current research seeks to answer what turns this innovative technology into art and tries to determine whether CryptoArt can challenge market-oriented and commoditized art in the capitalist system.

The purpose of the upcoming study is to get to know the way technology works in CryptoArt and trace its formation grounds in the history of art, to achieve a better understanding of this new artistic movement, and also to study the emancipatory potential of CryptoArt in the market-oriented field.

The present study draws upon the opinions of thinkers such as “Lucy Lippard,” “Walter Benjamin” and “Jean Baudrillard” and uses a fundamental purpose and historical-descriptive method to answer its questions. This research attempts to study an example of CryptoArt; The non-random sampling method was purposeful and includes the work of the well-known contemporary artist Damien Hirst, whose project has been reflected in the media, and whose sale price has been significant.

The results make it clear that CryptoArt follows the concepts of contemporary art history to redefine art and show its relationship with life. In this new procedure, technology tries to restore the authenticity and uniqueness of modernism to digital art by adding a virtual asset to the works. Also, the findings indicate that encrypted art can bring opportunities and threats to the art world. On the one hand, it can decentralize and challenge the conventional frameworks of the capital-oriented art market, and on the other hand, it can become a tool to strengthen the commodification process and re-dominate capital over art.

In this study, in order to achieve another definition of the hero, first the concept of the tragic and tragic hero is described in contrast to the Trauershpiel hero, then three plays The Death of Yazdgerd by Bahram Beizaei, Sleep in an Empty Cup by Naqme Samini, and Qalandarkhone by Iraj Saqiri are analyzed based on the concept of Trauershpiel hero from Walter Benjamin's point of view. In Benjamin's interpretation of Trauershpiel, there are three heroes (tyrannical ruler, conspirator, and martyr) who are like the three vertices of a triangle. A tyrannical ruler is a symbol of a powerful person in history who is unable to make decisions. The character of the conspirator is a symbol of power and politics that leads the martyr to death with conspiracy.The research method is in the form of data collection and through a library study, which examines the concept of the hero of Trauershpiel in the three mentioned plays with a descriptive and analytical method. The analysis of The Death of Yazdgerd shows that the character of the despotic ruler sometimes complements the face of the conspirator and sometimes the upside-down face of the martyr, and also due to the narrative nature of the drama, the character of the conspirator is implied. The analysis of the drama Sleep in an Empty Cup indicates that the characters of the conspirator, the tyrannical ruler and the martyr are in repetition and rotation compared to the three objective characters of the present time and the three mental characters of the past time. The analysis of the Qalandarkhone demonstrates that due to the linearity of the dramatic narrative, the three Trauershpiel characters are not complementary and opposite to each other, and they do not cross the three vertices of a triangle. As a result, the characters of the two The Death of Yazdgerd and Sleep in an Empty Cup are the most compatible with the hero component of Trauershpiel play, because in addition to the alignment of the historical narrative with the dramatic text, the characters through the representation of the role, the repetition of the character, and the rotation of time from the past to the present, cross the three vertices of one triangle and the only difference is in the way the three vertices of a triangle are traversed by the play’s characters. Based on the study done, it is possible to find another hero for writing dramatic texts because the three heroes of Trauershpiel reflect the rulers on the stage and depict the powerlessness of the government and the power of the conspirators.

Ernst Jünger, a distinguished German author, and theorist is known as one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. Along with individuals like Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, he was among those right-wing thinkers whose ideas and theories had a great impact on raising the Nazi party. Jünger’s argument regarding total mobilization uses war and struggle as a model for the formation of a social condition in which the social order is reconfigured according to the concepts related to war. In such a condition, militarization and mobilization of wartime are injected into the social structure. Based on a descriptive-analytic method and by using library references, the present research aims at analyzing Fear and Hope (1960) film directed by George Ovadiah and studying how the condition of total mobilization and social control is represented in this film. Fear and Hope is the life story of a young married man named Mr. Karimi who due to the economic and financial crisis of the 1950s has just been dismissed from his job and as a result, cannot afford the expenses of the New Year ceremony. Regarding the impaired social condition, economic crisis, and the spread of demonstrations and strikes against the government in the late 1950s, the present study tries to unfold some socio-political implications of the film. In this regard, the film acts as a propagandistic work that introduces a fanciful image of a coherent empathetic society in which the government and citizens are mobilized to confront the danger that is threatening one of the citizen’s life (a metaphor of threatening the social order). The social-familial peace and stability pictured at the end of the film can be linked to the Pahlavi regime’s tendency to establish stability and order in the heart of demonstrations and strikes.

Flaneurie is an innate component of readings on modern urban life which has come to the heart of critical discourses owing to the writings of Charles Baudelaire in the nineteenth century and the works of Walter Benjamin in the twentieth century. Since the 1990s, new perusals of the flaneur have made it yet again an appealing concept in academic studies which is modernized through blending with the recent subjects and is no longer confined to Europe. This dissertation begins its arguments by iterating Baudelaire's narration of the flaneur. After going over Benjamin's notes on flaneurie and a brief description of Iran's society and cinema concerning urbanism and modernity, the presentment of Benjamin's flaneur in Iranian works of cinema from 1990 to 2017 is specified. To do so, the evaluated films belong to pseudo-genres like “urban films”, “street films” and “social films. “This research assays the embodiment of Benjamin's flaneur as the characters of films and with a statistical view it can be said that although what is known as the “flaneur” by the Iranian film critics has similarities to that of Benjamin’s, they're fundamentally distinct; distinctions that based on the means of production, censorship, pre-revolution cinematic movements, and the Iranian modernity in a broad view. These differences make it necessary to construct a new definition of the flaneur to separate it from the ideal type of it, a definition which is upon the common qualities and motifs of said films. This definition of the cinematic flaneur is an attempt to demonstrate that Benjamin's vision of flaneurie is absent in the Iranian cinema except for some rare occasions and that the film critics and filmmakers, for years with an inaccurate terminology and an askew hermeneutics of this tremendous concept, have turned it into a conserve and dissimilar matter.

Interdisciplinary research creates a gap between the participating disciplines and focuses on areas of overlap between disciplines. In this research, the relationships are completely relative and the participant parties can proportionally benefit from the assumptions and the involved interdisciplinary. City and Cinema are two products of modernity that have similarities and a lot in common which provide the basis for interdisciplinary studies. Creating a flanuer character in the city is one of the characteristics of modernity; flanuer is a person who walks freely and discovers the city with no special purpose. In the world of movies and films, the cinemagoers can also be considered as a kind of flanuer; they are in another world while watching a movie; a world that has no definite beginning and end and its path is formed through the angles of the camera and the look of the director.This article seeks to explore the aesthetic and social situations of cinematic spaces based on the theories of Walters Benjamin.

In this study, to achieve another definition of tragedy, the concept of trauerspiel is read by Walter Benjamin. trauerspiel means a show of sadness with a tragic ending, a german idiom chosen for baroque dramas. unlike greek tragedy, trauerspiel dramas do not speak of myths and god-like human beings, but focus on historical-political themes and events. Walter Benjamin classifies the elements of trauerspiel in the six categories of the link of time past and present, the representation of the inner plot, the designed action, the tragic hero, objects and destiny, the depiction of violence.The research method is data collection through library study and with a descriptive-analytical method examines the components of trauerspiel in two Plays "death of yazdgerd" by Bahram Beizai and "sleep in an empty cup" by Naghmeh Samini. these two works have been written in two different time periods and in addition to reflecting the historical narrative in their work, they have a conspiracy of the characters, the intersection of the past moments with the present and the repetition of history in the inner plot. in a way, these two effects are most conformity with trauerspiel components.Another reading of tragedy can be found in the studies that have taken place, because trauerspiel is intertwined with history and reflects human suffering, and as long as the powerful and the rulers dominate the world, trauerspiel drames can to yourself life continue.

Walter Benjamin, a philosopher, and theorist associated with Frankfurt School, is known as one of the leading figures in studies about urban modernity. The point that “modern city” is the central theme of many of Benjamin’s works, has been investigated in several studies. However, what has been mostly neglected is the influence of visual/spatial qualities of the modern city on shaping Benjamin’s method for thinking, thereby writing, and forming the perceptive experience of readers while facing such texts. The present research, which is qualitative and fundamental research based on qualitative content analysis, correlates the origins of visual and spatial qualities in Benjamin’s writings with his interest in images and his studies on visual arts and the visual culture of the modern city. Concentrating on two chief works by Benjamin about city, One Way Street and The Arcades Project, the article tries to review the specifications of this method of writing. It is discussed that as Benjamin considers “flaneur” as the archetype of modernity who wanders across the urban landscapes, his writing method recalls a reader who seeks flanerie among textual landscapes. This research seeks to understand what perceptive qualities emerge for the audience-flaneur among the urban landscapes of Benjamin’s texts that distinguish this experience from the experiences of reading traditional forms of text? Thereafter, it is concluded that in opposition to traditional forms of reading based on the perception of an isolated, motionless, concentrated subject, the flanerie-like encounter with the text is a distracted reading which is shaped in an absent-mindedness condition. The subject of such a reading is a collective, corporeal, and moving subject. In this regard and while reading, the audience experiences the text through collective corporeality, similar to the mass experience of the modern metropolis.

Problem statement: 

Notions of space, place, and city are key concepts in the writings and works of Walter Benjamin, philosopher, and theorist related to Frankfurt School. Especially in his works, Benjamin studies the perceptual experience of facing modern urban spaces. The book Berlin Childhood around 1900 possesses a prominent status among his writings about European cities. The book originated from the unfinished project A Berlin Chronicle and is a memoir of his childhood experiences in Berlin in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. To find a suitable way to represent his childhood memories of the metropolitan experience, Benjamin uses the capacities of modern reproductive technologies such as cinema and photography. The present study draws a comparison between the literary style of the book used for describing the urban spaces of Berlin and the photographic style of Eugène Atget in depicting Paris. Benjamin considered Atget as one of the pioneers of Surrealist photography and believed that Atget’s cityscapes were illusory and phantasmic.

The present study tries to demonstrate the key role of new technologies, and especially photography, in the literary style and structure of Berlin Childhood around 1900. The study is to highlight the social-political implications to which Benjamin had alluded by adopting a photographic-surrealist approach in representing the urban memories of his childhood.

Data for this study were collected from bibliographic databases, by applying a descriptive-analytic method.

This study shows that these photographic pictures are interpreted not only in relation to the past but also to the present and future. The Surrealist “silent” and “cleared out” images Benjamin recalls from a faraway Berlin, obtain their meaning in contrast to the pompous propaganda of the Nazi Party for constructing a utopia from the heart of the First World War’s ruins.

The rise of fascism has had a profound effect on European literature, especially in Germany. Bertolt Brecht’s plays and the works of Walter Benjamin after the rise of fascism are examples of this influence. The rise of fascism and the German people’s association with it caused the absolute trust and belief in the revolutionary working class to be damaged and defeated. Brecht believed that absolute trust in the people and the belief in liberation from exploitation arising from the “progress” of the Enlightenment due to the unexpected emergence of fascism should be reconsidered. Another important consequence of the rise of fascism is war. Although World War II had not yet begun at the time of writing The Man Is a Man, Bertolt Brecht foresaw it with foresight. Forced deployment to the fascist war, the inevitable association of man with the aggressive war, and the transformation of the individual character under the repression of the fascist system are among the main elements of the play “Adam is Adam.” What stands out most in this play is human opportunism. Almost all the characters in the play are unable to prevent their transformation, and this is the catastrophe of the spread of fascism, which is no longer limited to the leaders and the Nazi party and encompasses all people. The play “Adam is Adam” is an epic play that tries through techniques such as distance, allegorical expression, prophetic companions, breaking the fourth wall between actor and spectator, metamorphosis of the hero’s journey, accidental events, revealing announcements of the future and. .. As much as possible, make the play educational and reduce its entertaining or cathartic aspect and raise the spectator from a state of ecstasy to a state of awareness. The overlap of comedy and tragedy is an important feature of epic theater. Epic theater does not allow catharsis and the fear and punishment of events and characters to frighten one of the consequences of the struggle against destiny. In this study we will find that Bertolt Brecht in the play “Adam is Adam” confirms the victory of the fate of fascism over man, although the open end of the play can be considered a way to free man and return from the trap of fascism.

In the Iranian cinema, it is possible to find various films that have built their own structure on the depiction of the Boredom of their own heroes. In these works, there are passive characters rising from modernity that do not have affinity with the active characters of the classical cinema. Since these characters are a manifestation of modern human's condition, it is possible to recognize their characteristics by investigating about their encounter with the modern city. In spite of the fact that in the discourses related to modernity, flaneur is often considered as a person who warmly embrace the stimuli and shocks of the modern city, some theoreticians believe that flanerie might be read with what Simmel has regarded as a blasé characteristic of the modern subjects. From Simmel's point of view, the experience of a blasé person is a devoid of "qualities" that leads to a perception based on the "devaluating the whole objective world". Simmel's analyses and thoughts have left a great influence on the ideas of Walter Benjamin in his discussions about concepts such as distraction and boredom. Benjamin believed that when passing through the modern city, in confrontation with assault of the images, the eye would lose its ability to concentrate, and as a result a new kind of perception would emerge. A perception based on the movement of eyes between countless and diverse surfaces and images, which is associated with impossibility of contemplation and concentration: the distracted perception. The main point is that, despite the existence of films focused on the boredom, so far, less research has been done about Iranian cinema that focuses on how to display boredom and blasé, and to investigate the perception of the modern subject in confrontation with Urban modernity based on the ideas of Simmel and Benjamin. Focusing on Gavkhooni (The River's End) by Behrooz Afkhami, This paper attempts to investigate depiction of boredom and blasé in this film based on the ideas of thinkers such as Benjamin and Simmel. In most of the works that try to depict their character's boredom, this concept appears more at the narrative/fictional level, and the filmmaker is not able to convert the sense into cinematic matter. According to the discussed issues in the present article, Gavkhooni (The River's End) is declared as a specific example of Iranian post- revolution cinema, which succeeded in developing the boredom of the character/ narrator into the various cinematic levels. For example, the relation between boredom and narrator is reproduced in relation between him and the geography of the city of Isfahan. In order to visualize as much as possible, the aimlessness and bordem of the character which emerge as a result of daily routine that surrounded him, Afkhami creates a vague cinematic city which is far from real geography of Isfahan. As a result, and according to the findings of this study, it can be stated that Gavkhooni (The River's End) goes beyond mere displaying a narrative about the boredom and has succeeded to improve this sense based on the fundamental features of cinema art.

Certain vicissitudes are generated in the relations between photography and painting by the artists and theoreticians in their investigations about photography and its interplay with the art of painting. Early during the advent of photography, no artistic value was attached to the photographs insofar as it managed to find a home among the rest of the arts, and a long way was taken to attach an artistic value to the photographs in the courts of justice. Nonetheless, painting always predominated as fine art and a symbol of wealth, culture, and civilization. Primarily, a periodical journal printed Gustave Le Gray’s photographs entitling them as artistic pictures. Photography gradually adopted an artistic language and expression, such that today it holds a critical role in modern arts, especially land art and installations.This paper mainly seeks to investigate the course of development in the position of photography and its rivalry with painting and even its access to progressive art with a new language and expression. The main question about the position of photography versus painting is on its invention until the modern era and post-modern art. We attempt to examine what new frontiers the historical race between photography and painting artists are introduced in contemporary art. The present paper attempts to examine the position of photography in the art, and evaluate its status in reciprocity or competition versus painting by making references to the works of the artists up until the contemporary era, with an approach towards the views of the twentieth-century theoretician – Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) – about the reproducibility of artworks. Apparently, due to its flexible character and since it creates innovation, photography is turned reproducible and into a new instrument in postmodern art, such that it could be regarded as a separate art with a novel expression and as the establisher of many art styles.Since its advent, triggered by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) in 1839, photography entered a special rivalry with painting, which has been marked by many of the philosophy theoreticians, since this visual medium or art is way too occult and constantly separating itself from the rest of the arts and outreaching them as the most important medium of expressing artistic concerns. Some artists regard photography as being specific to a certain group. However, since the advent of photography in the nineteenth century, it turned more popular and accessible than painting, meaning that many walks of people could make a self-portrait in the photo studios. Yet, painting art was still in use and accessible by the better-to-do class of society. On the other hand, many painting artists including Charles Negre (1820-1880) and Edgar Degas (1834-1917) used photographs in their paintings. This made photographers such as Edward Steichen (1879-1973) and advocates of pictorialism liken their photographs to the romantic and sometimes imaginary atmosphere of paintings to produce an identity for their works and getting them closer to the world of art.Lewis Frederick Meyer (1822-1913) and Pierre-Louis Pierson (1822-1913) were two photographers who left a significant impact on the process of turning photography into art since they accused some photographers of stealing their photographs. In that period, copyright laws were enforceable only to works of art. Therefore, it had to be proven in the court of law that photography is an art. At last, the French court ratified that photography is entitled to the same rights attributed to a work of art like painting. Pierson and Meyer published the book “Photography” to consolidate the position of photography among the rest of the arts. According to them, photography stopped groundless and uncreative painters working.Therefore, the present paper reviews the history of photography and the advent of various photography schools inspired by the painting schools and vice versa, examining the course of evolution and interplay of these two arts. From among the various views of the painting or photography artists and the relevant theoreticians, Walter Benjamin speaks seriously and severally about the newly emerging arts of his time – photography and cinema – in an essay titled “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. In this essay, he investigates the power of reproduction in the modern age and enumerates its impacts on the arts and the popular masses. More than any other art, the power of photography and reproducibility of photographic images, attracts attention in this context. In Benjamin’s opinion, works of art have always been reproducible. “Everyone can copy works of others”. In his opinion, photography has altered the substance of art.In part seven of his essay, he explicitly emphasizes the historical disputes as to the reciprocity or competition between painting and photography, dubbing it as “devious and confused”. He believes that this dispute is a historical transformation the universal impact of which was not realized by either of the rivals (Benjamin, 1998: 216). Today, the impact of photography on the contemporary arts – some of which we have laid down in this paper – is evident to all, and it has further increased despite the technological changes.Since late in the 1970s, the work of the postmodern photographer - Cindy Sherman – called “Untitled Film Stills” (1954), and Andy Warhol’s “The Death and Disaster” painting silk-screens from 1963 to 1964 made the critiques and artists pay attention to photography as a media element in the contemporary life. In the 1970s, photography was used as a medium in many contemporary art styles, especially in the works of land art and its various principles. On the other hand, photographers also independently tried to get attuned to the postmodern artistic values - especially in the topic of the environment – by the realization or documentation of their surroundings. Modern topography images are included in the category. The impression and impressionability between photography and painting in their various styles are manifested in the works of photographers and painters, insofar as photography leaves effect in creating an artistic style like photorealism as an independent and powerful medium according to Edward Lucie-Smith as he has conceived in his book “The Globalization and the Modern Art”.In response to the study of these two arts’ position, and considering the views of Benjamin and the artistic styles emerged especially in the postmodern era, it seems that we would arrive at the answer that photography may hold a significant role in the postmodernist art by its capability of dynamism and universalism. Walter Benjamin’s views explain the importance of photography during the age of mechanical reproduction or duplication among the popular masses and its increasing role in rivaling painting in contemporary art, pointing out the extinction of originality in the art. Photography is an art that impacts other arts every day, especially in the postmodern era, and is an inseparable part of postmodern art, since splendid artworks may be created even out of the cheapest photographs, referring to the works of painters like Gerhard Richter (1932). As Walter Benjamin maintains, photography universalized the art and brought artists a novel attitude based on which one may say the art has rerouted from the concepts of originality and specialty and belonging to a certain class of the society to the direction of popularity and accommodation to the popular masses. It seems by analyzing his views that Walter Benjamin does not look at photography as something void of art, but he regards its universality as a forerunner for its artistic application. More specifically, he points to the works of Eugène Atget (1857-1927) – the nineteenth-century French photographer – who has reduced the last of the cult values of the photographs - the human portrait - and has increased its exhibitory value by taking photographs of deserted urban spaces with no human portraits and figures (Benjamin, 1998: 215). Indeed, it seems that Benjamin thinks more about the importance of the invention of photography and its impact on art and its impression on the value of art in the eyes of the popular masses. Today, the impact of photography on the contemporary arts is publicly evident and has increased more than ever despite technological changes. In Benjamin’s view, the art has lost its sanctity due to the technological advancement of photography alongside the loss of the sacred undertone of the photographs, gradually becoming accessible by the popular masses. In other words, photography has been effective in the loss of the personification undertone as an instrument of the mechanical age of artistic reproduction.Aside from Benjamin’s views, one may depict that photography worked like a catalyst in its age and managed to bring about abundant changes in the attitudes of the painters and painting art styles. It managed to dissolve and attach the antagonists to itself. Precision in details and shooting the seconds or “capturing the moments” with the help of light is a possibility painting has never been able to take benefit of in picturing the imagination, but using photography. The sanctity of the moment in daily life is undoubtedly precious, and shooting it and eternizing “a moment” that no more exists is way too valuable, and this amazing thing is difficult to be done without the medium of photography.

Women have long been object of attraction for monetary purposes, and history has proven that women and their appearance have always been considered as a major part of ads for several industries. Even in some Islamic countries such as Iran, this use is possible to be traced, and this important issue has not yet received the attention it deserves.  The major concern of the present research is considering  woman as the object and content of the artistic works for financial purposes. Also, the present article aims to study the issue of women as objects within the framework of the ideas proposed by the famous German philosopher of the Frankfurt school, Walter Benjamin. The research starts its discussion with the evolution of the concept of women in the realm of conceptual arts, and more precisely in pictures, photography and the huge wave of pop art movement in the consumerist era in which we are living. The study makes use of Benjamin’s idea named “Breaking of the Aura of an Artistic Work”, and the mechanical reproduction which follows it. By breaking the Aura of an artistic work, we mainly mean the decrease of the value level of the artistic works from a sublime level to a very popular one, and changing the artistic productions in terms of the value they always enjoyed and were respected for. The current research tries to answer the question that why women are the undetectable and undeniable parts of the consuming goods in the advertisements, and how this tight relation can be explained in terms of Walter Benjamin’s ideas. Has really the value of arts, and the value of the women used as the object of these advertisements been decreased? Why is it so, and what has paved the way for the current situation? To what extent is the industry responsible for this, and to what extent the capitalist approach to life style may be blamed? How is it that even the Islamic countries and the countries who claim to be opposing the capitalist life style have also been affected by this wave? The present article tries to touch these issues, although it puts Iran in the priority of its research. Therefore, the article also deals with this issue in the modern Iran, before and after the Islamic revolution of 1978, and considers the emergence of breaking of women’s Aura in the Iranian ads and slogans, considering the limitations that the Iranian culture considers and sometimes imposes for this work. As we know, women should be covered in social media, no nudity is permitted, and women should not wear revealing dresses. Also, heavy makeups and close up camera shots were not allowed for a long time from women, and all these seem to be some major obstacles in showing women and making them the objects of the ads. However, It seems that among the several arts that we may consider to be attacked by this idea, photography and cinema are more vulnerable. But how can this gradual change of women to “goods” can be explained? This question may not be answered easily, and a comprehensive reply is beyond the scope of an article. Also, the present article is not supposed to consider all sorts of advertisements, and limits itself to the painted and printed billboards used for this purpose, but  in order to achieve the important objective of this article, several instances of advertisements have been considered and introduced, and have all been later on analyzed in terms of the ideas put forward by Walter Benjamin, in the hopes to pave the way for further studies. The results are interesting, in that they represent some inevitable and undeniable similarities in different cultures, and no matter if the advertisement has been produced in an Islamic country or a western one, similar approaches to the presence of women are seen in the design of advertisements. No matter to what extent the culture of the question claims to defend the social rights of women, it seems that when it comes to money making for the industry, women are degraded to some simple objects to draw the attention of the customers, many of whom believed to be men.

Examining the relationship among cinema, architecture and city has become one of the substantial issues in modernity-based film theories in recent years. Debate about the reconfiguration of modern city’s landscapes in the nineteenth century and concentration on the concept of “flanerie” forms the main part of what David Bordwell calls the “modernity thesis”. Flanerie is an aimless excursion in a kind of distracted perception and absent-mindness through the labyrinths of modern metropolis. Strolling, watching and being absorbed into the visual and spatial attractions of metropolis, is the main motivation of a flaneur. Baudelaire introduced the flaneur as the modern world's hero, someone who seeks to immerse himself in the collective sensuality of urban spaces, looking to be melted down in fluidity of urban chaos, in search for fusion with collective mass to become "one flesh with the crowd". Like Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin also considered the flaneur as the archetype of modern subject, who in an ecstatic state strolls through the urban spaces and his emphatic look to moving bodies and faces reach to a level in which he is transformed to a united body with the crowd. At the same time, he can be either self or the other. Pointing to intimate and interactive relationship between flanerie and the artistic imagination, Benjamin believed that due to the flaneur's creativity in dreaming, in front of his eye, the urban environment is converted to a surreal landscape. It might be stated that flaneur is projecting his imaginative inner world over the physical reality of the city and reciprocally by employing physical and psychical essence of the city forms to his own dream. Hence, for a flaneur, an intertwined relation emerges between the real and imaginary maps of the city, to the extent that he cannot distinguish between these two maps. During this dissolving process between the illusional and real maps of the city, the flaneur practically appears as a dreamer architect who reconstructs the architectural identity of the city by projecting his own inner emotional space into the physical territory of the urban landscape. Benjamin, who had acknowledged the cinematic qualities of modern city, also connects cinema and flanerie, and emphasizes that the act of flaneur is so much similar to the experiences of making and watching a film. In this way, the film spectator could be considered as an imaginary flaneur, walking through cinematic time and space. With the changes in the contemporary urban planning, the context of flanerie has also been transformed, and in contemporary automobile-based cities, car driving can be considered as a new version of flanerie. The viewpoint of the observer from the car and the perception of changing landscapes through the car window, have an undeniable similarity to watching a film, And by looking through the windshield, the city unfolds itself sequentially as a cinematic screen. The car's "autopia", provides an audiovisual space in which, the montage of the images as well as the sonic soundtrack are completely reminiscent of the space of the cinema.

This articles focuses on the possibility of the audience’s democratic participation in the interactive arts and discovers it on some samples of art activism. The theoretical framework is based on Walter Benjamin’s ideas about democratic art, and on the relationship between art and politics as seen by Jacques Rancière. It searches features of democratic participation in art in two models, “the standing man” in Turkey as a political-artistic action, as well as the “Village of Arts and Humanities” in the United States as a socio-artistic activity. The paper analyzes political and democratic characteristics of the samples based on the theoretical framework proposed and explaines how art activism with interactive approach provides the equall involvement and participation of the audience and also clarifies why these activities should basically be considered as Art.

Since the enlightening era, theater has served as a setting for reemergence and representation of philosophical notions. A historical interchangeability between philosophy and myths apparently motivated theater in the post-enlightening era to start to reflect myths and traditions in its dramatic structure one way or another. The present article aims to examine the technical replicability of classic works in modern theater following the critical views of Walter Benjamin. It also aims to be a review of the philosopher’s views. Though Benjamin never directly debates theater, his views cover so extensive an area in art that one can trace and redefine the 20th century’s theater based on his literature and thoughts. Benjamin not only seeks to reveal the debilitative aspects of the modern instrumentalist rationalism but also aims to criticize the dark side of the modern time as a modern subject. In this sense, modern author as knowing subject takes modern works as object of knowledge and seeks to review or replicate the works as dialectic matters between traditional sense and its modern sense in a way that modern human could realize it in a replicated sense. The main aim of the study is to bridge a given gap between a work of art and its audience. The aim may help establish a bond between traditional and sectarian values of art and eventually imbue the field of art with value of life, a value that Benjamin considers as inevitable for modern human to embrace.

The following article, while examining the famed article “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Benjamin, will point out to the overturn of the works of art in the modern world. It will also claim that the concept of art and, in general, the experience of art have gone through radical changes. Additionally, concepts such as divine light, heavenly environment, and artistic authenticity have vanished in history, and the rituals have been replaced with political, social, and cultural experiences with regard to artistic works. I believe that the mechanical reproduction in the contemporary world has been another harsh stroke on the body of archaic traditional covenants, and it has open up new spaces for artistic experience.