Walter Benjamin: The First Theory of New Media 

I would really love a lecture series on media theories in chronological order, especially if it’s combined with some historical and social backgrounds. I’m really curious about how we got to where we are.

Very interested in something like a lecture series, this was wonderful.

I'd love more of this kind of lecture.

A lecture series on media theories is something I would love to watch. Thanks for all the amazing work you're putting out

Everyone says “reproduction” in English because of the published translation, but “Reproduzierbarkeit” should actually be translated into “reproducibility”, unless my German is even rustier than I think it is. I think this matters, because Benjamin realized that all art created after it became possible to make copies was produced with that possibility in mind. Hence you see the museum art (installations etc.) that by their very nature, often their size, would be impractical to copy for private consumption.

I read _The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction_ a few years ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Perhaps the reason it fascinates me is because, as you suggest here, it still finds relevance in the modern era of profilicity. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend the 2010 film Certified Copy, a rare movie that explores the topic of reproducibility in art (and in life/relationships). There’s a message there about appreciating the value of what initially appears to be a valueless copy-a message I think we need today where finding authenticity is an arduous task.

I'd be interested in seeing a longer series on this subject; particularly how more recent theorists like Debord and the Situationists expand on Benjamin's media theory. I see the current wave of AI art bots as very much in this vein of hypercapitalist appropriation of art and transformation into pure diversion/distraction (aka Spectacle); while removing it even farther from authenticity by eliminating the self-exhibition factor, and thus placing it even beyond personal profile as there is ultimately no longer any connection to a person. "Mechanical reproduction" replaced with the even further alienated "mechanical creation".

I really appreciate this channel... I have a lot of issues concentrating on texts due to adhd despite genuinely caring about them, so being able to listen to a critical breakdown of these ideas alongside it is really helpful

Wow yeah he strangely does describe our times today better then his own, very impressive! Great work! I would love to see you do a video on my favorite philosopher Slavoj Zizek, im curious what your thoughts on him will be!

Loved the video, found it "awesome" and feel "entertained". I'd tooootally be down to watch a course on media theory presented by you. It could be a series of videos here on RU-vid or you could put up a webcourse on a platfom like Udemy.

I would *love* that media history lecture series. If possible, with theories in chronological order and in format of longer videos. The more, the better - just like Adriana Chechik.

Very happy that you cover Benjamin!

At the end you mention considering doing more lecture based videos like this and I hope you do. This channel produces some of the more intellectually engaging material I'm able to find on RU-vid.

Eagerly await the lecture series!

Thank you for uploading this. I just finished watching. This format works.

More of this, please and thank you. Lectures, video essays, vlogs, whatever suits yourselves in my opinion.

I'd love to hear your take on futurism on this context!

please lecture series!!! i'd like to have a lot of examples from art and pop cultural phenomena to go along with the theorie, makes me understand not only how philosophical theorie works but also why its crucial for humans

Yes please. More lectures on media theory.

Definitely would like a course or a lecture series.

Loved this. Yes. A lecture series!

This lecture series is deeply interesting, thank you for continuing to post these examinations. As an aside, after watching this lecture I finally understood a bunch of the jokes in "Hail Caesar!"

the interesting thing to me is we seem to be slowly seeing, at least in television, an explosion of what is generally considered "high-brow" TV (that is to say, narrative that is deep in visual and verbal metaphor, psychologically complicated characters, and can generally be interpreted as saying something about society) i.e compare Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad to Leave it to beaver or Brady Brunch. I don't know what to make of this if in just 50 short years mass taste has evolved so much, I often wonder what we will be reading or watching in another 50 years.

Great video, definitely need to read this essay

A lecture series would be awesome!

Very interesting, thanks!

yes, I am so interested in the lecture series .

So helpful. Thank you!

This presentation is an excellent one. Your channel here adds more insights to a lot of issues. There is a clear and concise and constructive criticism and manner in the way in which you talk and explain very difficult ideas. We like to thank you for that, indeed.

This was especially interesting for me, as Walter Benjamin's essay was assigned reading quite a bit in art school. But every single instructor seemed to have a different take, and when I tried to read the material myself, I had trouble understanding how any of them were coming to the conclusions they were. I'd love to hear more in this area of philosophy.

more media theory videos!! love these

Definitely interested in a lecture series on media theory. I would also love to hear a take about something like political discourse in music lyrics, especifically the band Rage Against the Machine. Im a big fan of your work, sorry for my bad english. Have a great year.

Great talk. He highlighted a penetrating observation by Benjamin at around 18mins- to paraphrase: the actor’s presentation of an authentic self is, for the audience, a method of training, of aid to survival in a modern economy, where one is expected to give one’s entire self to one’s job (“we want people who are passionate about retail “ the hustle culture etc.)

A very nice introduction to Benjamin. I would love a lecture series. You have a Patreon?

I would love to see a lecture series!

Read this essay as part of our Visual Anthropology course. What an eye opener

Lecture series would be great!

Lecture series on media theory would be great and helpful.

Great video. I think it is notable that social media that it is almost exclusively consumed privately and individually, where mass conditioning follows a more diffuse path. Rather than conditioning reactions in the theater or at the comedy show, the conditioning comes through mimicry in posting, sharing, and understanding cultural references. I think that is distinct from media in Benjamin's time. Moreover, algorithmic content curation accelerates a fragmentation where a general pier becomes less general, and where there is increasingly many overlapping situational publics, rather than one public.

14:02 that's just perfect. I've been thinking about the same thing since I was a kid ,yet nobody seems to notice

I'd be thrilled to see you do a lecture series ... Maybe trying to show the connection between the theories and how/ when they were developed would be a nice thing as I personally am always fascinated to learn about how those theorists at least partly based their work on ideas of theorists before ...

very informative video! I would definitely love more Benjamin content

I would love to see more of these lecture-like videos which are "less entertaining" (you can find entertaining videos anywhere). It is funny, because I just read this text from Benjamin the other day, and had a very pleasant discussion about is with a friend of mine. And now, that this video is published, I could not be more pleased.

Happy new year!

Fabulous! Thanks 🎉

I would love a lecture series on media theory.

absolutely interested...

Yes, lecture series on the media and its effects would be interesting

Needed this last semester lol

Your videos are comprehensive. And most importantly, i like your Profilicity, Professor !

Would love a lecture series on media studies and theories.

Yes please more of this! A lecture series or similar series as to your other videos where you analyze pop culture and new media while drawing parallels and similarities between trends and events (such as the rise of Jordan Peterson or the Pewdie Pie Nietzsche videos) with philosophical and social commentary and theory would be very much appreciated. In short please keep them coming!

Moeller puts such time and effort into these videos

A lecture series on the topic of media theory would be an entertaining diversion, Professor.

I would love more videos on media theory.

I would be very interested in a lecture series or simply just further discussion of media history and analysis thereof.

great video

Great Video. I had some additional thought on the video, i feel expressing might be interesting. First of i think translating the german word "Begutachter" solely as "Critic" is a bit unprecise. I think using a more literal translation like "Auditor" is a better choice. I'd say Benjamin deliberatly chose the word "Begutachter" over "Kritiker", the usual word a media critic in german. If we look at the period the book was written in, we can see a shift in critiquing. No longer was it an exercise in examining aesthetic qualities, analysing narratives or justifying your taste or distate. Art also had to match certain ideological criterias, which were held up as objective metrics of quality. I'd say that this tranformed media critique also into a process of auditing. If we look at our modern day, we can see this mindset of "begutachten" or "auditing" too, but of course not to the same brutal extend and totalitarian nature attached to it. A praxis of audition could be seen f.ex. with focus-group testing, a confidence of being able to objectively determine the quality of media and last but not least the demand by consumers for media to meet certain criterias. Those criterias could be literal adaption of a media product into another, to repeat established tropes of long-running series as a means to stay "faithful" or to get/stop being woke by writing/not writing stories about certain minorites. My second point is about celebrity culture and worship. While there is the aspect of idolising a human being, the worship of celebrities nowadays can also have the aspect of a Saviour Surrogate. I believe this aspect really began to exist during the 60s and especially gained importance as a reaction to the aftermath of what happened during the late 60s/early 70s. Celebrities who express their political opinions or represent certain identities can be seen as a hopeful figure who's fame and influence can change society, as their is a perceived lack of traditional stand-ins for societal change like political leaders and activists or in terms of kings and religious figures no longer serve this role. Think of Elon Musk and his fans. This saviour surrogate can be especially important for people who are marginalised and who might feel as if certain celebrities are their last hope of feeling or being empowered in face of their disenfranchisement. Kendrick Lamar handled this aspect of celebrity culture pretty interestingly in his last Album "Mr Morale and the Five Steppers" in terms of Black Entertainers in the African-American community. This Saviour Surrogate can be such a powerful idea that even the worshipped Celebrities themselves believe in the need for this Figure and willingly embrace a sort of Savior Complex, as Lamar admitted in his last project. I think especially the last aspect of a Saviour is often overlooked in media critique from this school of thought that later became critical theory. The points about the culture industry, spectacle and consumerism are without a doubt valid, but it can also sort of drive one into a cynical detachement, where we overlook the importance certain media or media personalities can have on individuals or social groups. Anyways, i am genuinly excited to see this turn into a multi-part series, as i often struggle to delve into this topics and subjects myself. Videos like yours often give me great entry points to familiarise myself or motivate me into reading books about philosophy, society etc. Thank you

ahhh thank you so much!

Please do a course! As long as you keep connecting these abstract philosophical terms to reality, anything will be greatly received.

Please do a lecture series

i am more than okay with any kind of content you upload for real!

History of media theory course - Yes, yes yes!

yes 1000% into this series like always.

Excellent stuff! If I may make a humble suggestion/request - if you're going to do another one of these please do Debord

I wrote about Benjamin‘s essay in my film school days, as a German person. As for as I agree with most analysis of this great video, I think that there still is an unsharp understanding of the term of „Zerstreuung“ (translated as diversion, distraction here). This has a more dialectic meaning in my interpretation of the essay. Benjamin writes that only the distracted spectator will be able to see or decipher the truth in the imaginery. There is the concept of „Choque“ in the essay which is very dialectic to distraction, this concept has not been mentioned here or even taken into consideration as it seems to me. For me therefore there is even more avantgarde in the essay as said here. The Movies and new media arts, according to Benjamin, train the spectator into beeing better able to decipher truth (of his own role in work and society, of society‘s character, and of real politics and society developments ). They train him to save himself and his fragile identity even facing horrorful and evil daily realities and developments. So there is, in my eyes, still a misunderstanding and undiscovered emancipative potential in his essay, even later not recognized by Adorno and Horkheimer, as well by as most theorists since. Except, maybe, Hannah Arendt.

I might add one thing with regard to the detached audience. While it is certainly true that contemporary audiences are primed to set the reproduction apart from the artist, and in this way depersonalize the art - as if it did not come from another person - I would add that the reproduction also becomes extra-personal, or at least can become extra-personal. Because the reproduction is set apart, like an artifact without an owner, audiences seem to be more inclined to take possession of it themselves. “The author is irrelevant and this object is mine.” And this somehow twists its head around to look directly at the artist, at times, and demand that they respect the art as it is seen by the audience, instead of the audience respecting the art as it is seen by the artist. This is not so much a rule as it is a phenomenon that comes to be on occasion. Here is my obligatory participation, thank you for the video. The lecture style is a pleasure. [Adds comment to portfolio to brand self as reflective and interesting]

I love this so much

Yes, I would bevery interested in a course on media theory from this channel. Since I would (not be able to) pay for it I would only wish to view the crumbs of any and all interactive content. eg. Recordings of video meetings. If there were a place for an informal online book or text study via video meeting I would love to join in with that.

It would be great to have a New Media series.

What you said about the audience anticipating the mass reaction reminds me of Keynes's comment about the stock market being like a beauty contest where you pick who you think other people will find the most beautiful.

I am entertained by learning new things. Listening to this video essay brings back to my mind a recurring question I have had. Is learning a diversion? Do I (we) distract myself (ourselves) by learning about the world and thinking beautiful thoughts; does this stop me (us) from living in the world and influencing it? Or rather, in the context of this video: has learning/education become a form of entertainement in a certain way? That being said, I definitely would be interested in a series of lectures about media and would watch them on youtube.

Would love to see ana Analysis on matrix and that simulacra book as well

I'd like more lectures of this sort.

wow wow wow wow wonderful video

A lecture series on media theory would be fantastic. I'm applying for an honours thesis starting this year and will be focusing on livestream culture, would appreciate any help I can get!

I'd love to hear a presentation of yours on Marshall McLuhan and maybe Guy Debord.

It is interesting that I thought initially this was going to be related to the current discussion of "art" creating artificial intelligence tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion that have opened up a big debate of what "art" is - if it is so trivially reproducible without human effort. I think (so far) this is the full realization of "art" that is only amusement and distraction and cannot be used for mobilization. Because the AI has no intention of itself but only reflects those of the human it serves.

I would go as far as to pay for a lecture series on media.

Interested in course!

A lecture series would be great. I enjoyed this 3 lecture series on Walter Benjamin in the context of film theory: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-W1w3ot3JZno.html 20 minute lectures for me are the sweet spot, and I would be interested in lectures on Benjamin and profilicity, as well as any applicability that Benjamin may have to AI art.

Yes, more.

I'm very cool with lectures.

An unexplored area when referring to the "failure of communism" to use art as a means of mobilization leaves a large void if the role of the "trova cubana" and the "cancion latinoamericana de protesta" in the current and past mass mobilization of the working class and marginals is underestimated. Definitely looking forward to a course on this!!!!

Yeah a lecture series could be really educational.

interested!!

Please introduce to us the theories of Niklas Luhmann

Thank you for this! I would love to have a series about media theory, to hear about different ways it has been described. Especially about how can we read media through Luhman's systems theory versus (neo)Marxist approach to media. I am interested in how subjectivity curation can been seen through these two (and others?). Thanks again

When talking about "Critical Audience" 13:46 is where I have it paused right now. you are talking about such a difficult concept to grasp and understand especially when you are the fish living in the film, do you think this is why your tone and speech seem to have slowed down when trying to explain this. thanks

Yes

yesss

thank you it made me think some new way that I might had been forgotten .but I came to this idea that what if the art that masses producing in some specific time and place getting to produce authotarianistic values as producing the natural essentials aspects as the human figures and food and identity of a general idea over and over instead of criticizing it?

Can you do one on Peter Bürger?

I hope you will do a piece on generative AI art and how it affects the perceived value of art

Please, give us lectures!

Yes absolutely! More! More! More!

Not unrelated to the topic of this video: when are we getting an analysis of that Blame!-manga always peering over your shoulder? 😅

Warning should have been in the beginning yet it's at the end

Would love to hear your thoughts of all this in light on generative AIs. For example, Is it a medium or a tool?

Especially micheal hanke movies are about this