Film as a mobilizing agent? Adorno and Benjamin on aesthetic experience

Abstract

This article evaluates the role of art – particularly mechanically reproduced forms of art – in the writings of Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. The central claim is that both thinkers share the same conviction as to the emancipatory potentials of the work of art. Yet, they evaluate the effects of technological innovation differently. The underpinnings of this later resolved discord, however, are philosophical. In contrast to Benjamin’s belief in the possibility of mass mobilization, for Adorno the relevant category remains unequivocally the individual subject.