Visual Blogs. (I'll just mouth off about something small and highly specific because it caught my eye).

Badger writes:
"Weblogs, it could be argued, help to re-establish the connection between image and place. When we look at a blog image we also look at what appears around it – the design of the blog itself, the text, the other images, the voice of the blogger."

I don't buy into the argument that a visual blog closes the schism between original locus and original artwork. Benjamin wasn't talking about digital technology, and frankly I find it hard to believe that he would define digital work as original art to begin with. I would suggest that Benjamin would say digital art has no "aura" to be removed in the first place. Furthermore, if it is true that simply including captions and the html background of a blog ties visual work to its original locus, then the answer to returning original artwork to its natural environment (thereby negating Benjamin's concerns) is that all one has to do is post some pictures and details about the original location of creation and bam! we're back where we belong. Of course, this isn't true. Benjamin was saying that no matter what, a reproduction can never possess the original quality of the hand-made piece in the original locus and context of its creation. But digital art doesn't ever really exist, does it? It's little ones and zeroes. There is no film, no negatives, no paint involved. What is a digital photograph of a meal? Is it art in Benjamin's sense if there is no original copy? Is the original copy the first downloaded file one places on a hard drive? That sounds completely different to me than an original painting. Is the original gone forever once I download my pics and erase the memory card on the camera? Is it removed from its original context if I move the file from My Photos to My Documents? Is the aura gone if I buy a new computer and transfer all my files over? I think the argument is foolish.