Diary

The opposition between original and mechanically reproduced works of art only gets Walter Benjamin so far, and it often leads The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction into contradiction and confusion. The intended targets of mechanical reproduction are photography and film, yet from the outset, the attempt to exclude painting from being another form of mechanical reproduction is in difficulty. The example ' a cathedral leaves its site to be received in the studio of an art lover ' is intended to be about photography, but clearly, could be about painting too, were it not for the additional criteria of tradition, authenticity, and aura, which Benjamin attaches as characteristics to a painted reproduction but not to a photographic reproduction.

In the end, Walter Benjamin's Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction  relies on a series of oppositions that one may simply agree with or disagree with. The critical ideas are introduced early, and so that the rest of the essay is built around them: authority, authenticity, aura. ' The authenticity of a thing' Benjamin writes, 'is the quintessence of all that is transmissible in it'. This is connoisseurship, and of course in Benjamin, it meets Brecht's Marxism.

From the introduction: Theses defining the developmental tendencies of art can therefore contribute to the political struggle in ways that it would be a mistake to underestimate. They neutralize a number of traditional concepts-such as creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery-which, used in an uncontrolled way (and controlling them is difficult today), allow factual material to be manipulated in the interests of fascism. In what follows, the concepts which are introduced into the theory of art differ from those now current in that they are completely useless for the purposes of fascism. On the other hand, they are useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art. (Walter Benjamin) Art is the most deep seated response

Brexit no deal panic feels much like the Y2K bug - more induced than real. I wish with all my heart that the UK wasn't undertaking this act of national humiliation in the name of an imagined past. But today I said to myself 'there are bigger prizes than stopping Brexit'. The Guardian and the Observer came out yesterday in favour of a binary referendum (Chequers or stay in). Even if this was an acceptable scheme for a ballot, which it isn't, it's far too late in the day to be possible to hold a meaningful referendum. The Guardian posts up a picture of Saddiq Kahn, which means this is, as ever, part of the proxy war against Corbyn.

Barthes: 'I have said this to forestall disappointment and to limit confidence in a scientific method which is barely a method and certainly not a science' In applying S/Z to a scientific text what we are formalising is the narrative of science, and more so, seeking form rather than content, to confront a text in order to construct a grammar.

Some things are understandable - the phases of the moon for example - even if one isn't able to recite them. Some things, however, are beyond comprehension, for example the physical structure of the world considered at a sub-atomic level.  At one time people knew what the world was made of but the moon's waxing and waning were a deep mystery. Now the opposite is true.

A phrase I want to use but I'm struggling to understand. It seems to originate in Lacan, comes to me via Foucault's Birth of the Clinic , maybe picks up something in Bachelard....

In the square this morning people were talking about a coming storm, a t ormenta  in Spanish. The air smells different, a trace of rain lluvia , energy in the wind, anticipation. I walked up to the shop to buy enough chocolate to see out the storm.

Language is key - we humans are creatures constantly and necessarily finding and investing meaning in the world through words, through language. Nothing greater than to be meaningful; nothing more damning than to be meaningless.