ABSTRACT
The current situation could perhaps be best compared to the emergence of photography as art at the outset of the twentieth century. At that time this raised issues of authenticity, reproducibility and what Walter Benjamin termed as “aura”. Here the aura is in essence the cult value of the work of art which diminishes with the possibility of reproducibility. On emergence of the photograph as art, Benjamin said;
If we replace the word “mechanical production” for “digital production” then we have a very succinct description of the dilemma faced in evaluating the merits of the computer-generated capriccio from painting. There is perhaps a lesson here in history where the tradition of painting as higher from art has survived despite the emergence of the photograph and both modes of reproduction prevail in parallel.
