Name: Aura by Why Theory
Duration: 1 h 17 min 5 s
Description: In this episode, Ryan and Todd analyze Walter Benjamin's famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." This dive into the concept of aura that Benjamin focuses on, and then they move to the relationship between fascism and art. They also explain the significance of the differences between the distinct versions of the essay.

I like this line about ‘not caught between both camps but IN both camps’, and I think its an instance of a pattern in the history of philosophy/theory where the productive act consists not in a bad-Hegel ‘synthesis’ of initially opposing ideas but instead in drawing out and articulating the split already contained within earlier thinkers. My pet example of this is Spinoza, where Spinoza prefigures both Hegel AND Nietzsche in quite startling detail after some (by undergraduate standards) careful reading. What I take away from this, though, isn't that there's 'nothing new under the sun', but conversely that in order for either the Hegelian or the Nietzschean/Deleuzean ideas within Spinoza to be appreciated (or more strongly to HAVE the worth which can now see in them, unlike his contemporaries) we had to have the intervening centuries which bring them together as antagonistic.

Could you read the liberal mistake here as to resist fascism by being its opposite - by de-aestheticising politics, with a(supposedly) unenjoyable politics of technocracy, dialogue, compromise, etc?

Re: director DVD commentaries... I love the new generation of discs put out by companies like Arrow Video which often contain multiple commentaries: the director's commentary in which he (it's usually a "he" of course) pontificates on his genius, the actors' commentary in which amusing and possibly embarrassing anecdotes are shared, and then a commentary by some professor of cultural studies who waffles on at length about the deeper meaning. Maybe we can say that, taken together, these different tracks provide the Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary perspectives. You can decide which is which!

In the previous episode on competing universalities Todd talked about Plato and his concept of universality. I was wondering if you would make an episode all about Plato; his relationship with Lacan and Hegel would be especially interesting to hear. I've just recently been reading Badiou's book on Plato and his admiration for Plato in that book is immense to say the least. On the other hand, I haven't read Zizek talk that much about Plato. I wonder what you guys think. Great episode as always!

You talked about there will be blood/Paul Thomas Anderson a while back, and the problems with attempting to expose the jouissance. I wondered if you would also agree with Truffaut that all anti-war films end up being pro-war? 

What qualifies as aestheticizing politics? I want to use this argument to speak about the most recent Joker movie - would/could Arthur Fleck's enjoyment of seeing his face everywhere and gaining a personal recognition while failing to recognize the way that others are politicizing the 'art' or action that he has taken be an insidious way in which Arthur aestheticizes politics in that movie?

nos brisures, nos failles, nos fêlures,nos gouffres intérieurs..
ambiphonie, écoute au casque recommandée
bonne écoute !

Brisures

Unshackle

Why mix clouds, curbs, and the smell of sweat is the question she asks herself as she leaves her dream. It's not all supposed to form a coherent whole. How can you be inside the curb smell of a cloud with people walking on it?

Cloud Curb Smell

Cylinder 13q* [embryonic Mix]

In November I randomly discovered the song 'Cherish the day' by Sade. '4o4 Choir' started with a trial to mimic the drums' pattern & groove from Sade's track.

It has also been a month of production as we finally ended recording our new album with Antipodes. We ended crafting interludes using the SP404. It made me want to go back to my old 404 sampler in order to destroy this spiritual choir sample from Full Orchestra community.

4o4 Choir - Nov23

La PEna de'l stablo descuadrado Vs. El arándano Tóxico con latencia en el entrecejo

Fragmentos 4

Ryan and Todd unpack Jacques Lacan's most well-known seminar--Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. In doing so, they focus on Lacan's own exclusion as a starting point and then delve into two concepts that Lacan does not list among the fundamental ones--subjectivity and the objet a.

Seminar 11

Ryan and Todd analyze Slavoj Zizek's contribution in what may be his magnum opus--The Parallax View. They discuss how he builds on the concept of parallax as originally articulated by Kojin Karatani and its implication for Zizek's understanding of politics.

Parallax View

Ryan and Todd theorize the modernist novel as a specific literary form, defined not by its time period but by its structural exigencies. They relate this form to the importance of the ending that function as a cut in the narrative movement rather than as a summation of all that has happened, which contrasts it with previous iterations of the novel.

Modernist Novel

In this episode, Ryan and Todd analyze Walter Benjamin's famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." This dive into the concept of aura that Benjamin focuses on, and then they move to the relationship between fascism and art. They also explain the significance of the differences between the distinct versions of the essay.

Aura

Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

Aura

Why Theory

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