Internet memes in light of The work of art in the age of Mechanical Essay

Internet memes in light of The work of art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin - Essay Example This research paper is aimed at highlighting the importance of this prominent means of communicating ideas while relating it to the concepts of arts developed by Walter Bejamin in his article "The work of Art in the age of the Mechanical Reproduction". Discussion Immediately following the development of the concept of internet memes, the idea was taken by many in the field and a number of websites appeared which served the purpose of providing newly developed memes with expressions which could be molded according to one's needs. This was not limited to internet sites only; a number of books, e-books and social media sites also serve the purpose. Literature review Although abundant information is available regarding the various aspects of memes, only those resources will be selected which resonate with the ideas brought forward by Walter Benjamin in the selected article. To prevent bias from disrupting the authenticity of the document, equal importance will be given to resources with supporting or confronting views. Dawkin's (1976) work 'The selfish gene' will be used to get an idea about the origin of the concept of memes. The work of Shifman (2009) will be used to get an idea about the current trends about internet memes. Strohecker's (2012) work about authenticity of art works will be referred to for explaining in detail the nature of authenticity of art works. ... Burgress (2007) has described memes to be 'vernacular creativity'; she considers that memes are the result of daily artistic and innovative thoughts of people that take the form of an idea and are produced by simple means. Milner (2012) talks about memes and claims that with the passage of time and with improvement in technology, websites related to the development of memes are getting user friendly. Therefore, the range of topics and ideas covered by developers of memes are according to their age and interests; this implies that the themes of memes fall under literally thousands of categories. It is for this reason that a standard classification of memes according to genres is not feasible as yet. However, a general classification of memes can include categories like Reaction photoshops, Lipsynch, Misheard Lyrics and Recut Trailers etc (Shifman, 2014). It should however be understood that the basis of classification of memes can be different and various systems of classification of memes can be adapted depending upon the type of requirements under a given set of conditions. Aims of the project The aim of this project is to weigh the concept of memes against a standard; an article by a well known literary critic from Germany. Being the developer of the notion 'auratic perception', Walter in his work "The work of Art in the age of the Mechanical Reproduction" has discussed art in the light of the then prevailing circumstances in which the aspect of mechanical reproduction was very prominent. However, with the passage of time and with the development of new concepts and technologies, older methods of reproduction of art works have been replaced by a number of new methods. Although, a digital manifestation of the art works ensures rapid propagation