For John Berger, it is clear that the invention of the camera and its widespread use in the reproduction of art works has fundamentally changed art in general, as well as individual works. Berger begins by insisting that if one is to understand this, however, one must understand that art works are not seen in historical isolation. Rather, Berger argues that every painting is seen according to historically determined modes of perception and that these modes are part of what has been changed by the invention of the camera.
The primary element of this change is the removal of uniqueness and singularity from the experience of a painting, something results from the fact that works may now be reproduced and transmitted via a variety of different mediums. Walter Benjamin terms this singularity the “aura” of a work, and suggests that the camera has a potentially emancipatory function as it enables one to free oneself from a mystified fetishism (2009, p. 670). At the same time, however, Berger notes that the camera may create a further fetish in the sense that it leads to people prizing the original work much more high than its reproductions, which is then reflected in the extremely high prices for which such original art-works are sold. In this sense, the price of an original work comes to form a second, perhaps even more powerful version of it is original cult status which one must free oneself from if an authentic experience of a work is to be possible.
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Berger maintains that it is possible for a work of art, even when it has been reproduced mechanically or is being viewed through a television or a computer screen, to deliver a singular experience of a time and stillness. This experience is one in which two moments in time, the moment that the picture represents and the moment in which it is viewed, are connected together in a manner which would otherwise be impossible. As such, the camera may be understood to not only have provided the potential for the demystification of artworks, but also to have enabled such works to communicate themselves increasingly diverse, and potentially infinite contexts. This fact, however, remains contradictory, and Berger notes that it is possible for the camera to change the way in which a picture is viewed not simply in terms of its aura and context, but also by changing the meaning of its parts. Crucial to this change is the manner in which the camera enables varying perspectives on different aspects of a work, and to focus on some witth the exclusion of others. For example particular elements of large crowd scenes may be effectively “cut out” of a picture and made to have an entirely different meaning than that which they possessed when they formed part of the original. This leaves any picture open for manipulation and for use as propaganda.
Given this, I would argue that one should see the effects of the camera on art as consisting of a series of contradictions. While the camera may be seen to have emancipated objects, and those who view, from a fetishistic “aura” it has also led directly to the fetishism of the art-market and the enormous prices associated with original works. Likewise, while the camera has meant that the singular moment of time represented within a work of art is accessible in ways and in context in which it never was previously, it has also meant that it is possible for elements to be taken out of context used for allegorical and propaganda purposes. In conclusion, therefore, I would argue that the overall effect of the camera on art is not something that can stated definitively, but that it depends on the individual, or the institution, that makes use of it.
