Arcade project (memoire involontaire)

Abstract

The modern gaze developed through a network of changes to perception during the nineteenth century. A significant element within these changes is Walter Benjamin's concept of the 'aura'. This research paper examines the social aura contained in the space of a nineteenth century European city, the aural perception of an individual mobile gaze, and the decay of the aura that results from the decline of experience in the contemporary metropolis. I have linked the decline of experience and loss of aura to the arrival of photography in the 1840's. This new technology had the ability to fix a visual image into a permanent record and as recorder of reality, had a large impact on perception. For example, it had the ability to bring the exotic near, and provide close-ups of natural objects not possible with the naked eye. The camera 'sees' in a different way to how the eye 'sees'', yet photographic seeing is accepted as being the normal mode of perception. It is a way to capture an experience, and to relive this at a later date by providing a reference point for memory; the modern gaze looks back, it lacks a lived experience in the now

Date of Award	1996
Original language	English