THE TOPOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY ART - PT. 2
The copy, on the other hand, has no place and is therefore ahistorical, being from the beginning a potential multiplicity. Reproduction means dislocation, deterritorialization, transporting the work of art into topologically indeterminate networks of circulation. Benjamin's corresponding statements are well known: "even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art lacks one element: its presence in time and space, its only existence in the place where it is found" and he continues: "the here and now of the original is the prerequisite of the concept of authenticity". But if the difference between the original and the copy is only topological - if there is only a difference between a closed, fixed, marked, auratic context and the open, unmarked and profane space of the anonymous mass circulation - then not only is the operation of dislocation and deterritorialization of the original possible, but so is the operation of relocation and reterritorialization of the copy. One is not only able to produce a copy from an original by a reproduction technique, but one can also produce an original from a copy through a technique of topological relocation of that copy, that is, by means of the installation technique.
Installation art, which is currently the flagship form in the context of contemporary art, operates as a reverse of reproduction. The installation extracts a copy of the supposedly open and unmarked space from the anonymous circulation and places it - even if only temporarily - in the fixed, stable and closed context of a topologically well-defined "here and now". This means that all objects arranged in an installation are original, even when - or precisely when - they circulate as copies outside the installation. The components of an installation are original for a simple topological reason: you have to go to the installation to see them. The installation is first and foremost a socially coded variation of the practice of flaneurship, as described by Benjamin, and therefore a place for the aura, for "profane enlightenment. Our contemporary relationship to art cannot, therefore, be reduced to a "loss of aura. Rather, the modern era organizes a complex interplay of dislocations and relocations, of deterritorializations and reterritorializations. What distinguishes contemporary art from that of previous times is only the fact that the originality of a work of our time is not established according to its own form, but through its inclusion in a certain context, in a certain installation, by means of its topological inscription.
Benjamin overlooked the possibility - and thus the inevitability - of reauthorizations, relocations, and new topological inscriptions of a copy because he shared with modernist art a belief in a single, normative art context. Under this assumption, the fact that a work of art loses its unique and original context would mean that it would forever lose its aura, that it would become a copy of itself. The reauritization of an individual work of art would require a sacralization of the entire profane space of the topologically indeterminate mass circulation, which would be a totalitarian and fascist project. This was the main problem in Benjamin's thinking: he perceived the space of mass circulation of the copy as a universal, neutral and homogeneous space. He insisted on the permanent recongnition, on the very identity of the copy as it circulates in contemporary culture. But today these two central assumptions in Benjamin's text are questionable. In the environment of contemporary culture an image is permanently circulating from one medium to another medium and from a closed context to another closed context. Certain film material can be shown in a cinema, then converted to a digital format and appear on someone's website, or be shown during a lecture as an illustration, or seen privately on a television screen, in a personal room, or placed in a museum, in the context of an installation. Thus, through different contexts and media, this film material is transformed by different programming languages, different software, different screen frames, and different locations in the installation, etc. Are we always looking at the same film material? Is it the same copy of the same copy of the same original?
End of Part 2
Giuseppe Alletto