感觉自从前年读了本雅明的《机械复制时代的艺术作品》之后，每年都机缘巧合重读并有了新理解。今年是Art & Politics课上提到了他这篇文章的写作背景是法西斯propaganda如火如荼的时候。在这个context下看他讨论“灵韵/光韵/aura”就有了别样的意义。老师说机械复制时代本来意味着aura的消失，但法西斯通过再造aura来重新营造出cult-like的体验。本雅明透过电影业来指出了这种对aura的rebuild/re-echant：

“The film responds to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the “personality” outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity.”

对影星“personality”的cult也是对政治领袖“personality”的cult。人们被引导相信自己崇拜的是真正的aura。而这种伪造的aura必然需要对art form的abuse，正如他在结尾写的：“The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.”

另外，本雅明倒是从来没有说过aura是更好、或者对艺术品来说是必要的。觉得他更多是在讨论随着technical standard/技术(i.e. art form)的变化，人们欣赏/体验艺术的方式也在变化。也是在这个意义上，当aura(和cult、ritual)消失后，艺术品开始有了政治性，有了mobilize the masses的能力(用来channel revolutionary power，而法西斯通过render politics aesthetic来distract这股力量)。

文章最后一条脚注也非常有意思，新的art form也创造了新的viewer：

“Mass reproduction is aided especially by the reproduction of masses. In big parades and monster rallies, in sports events, and in war, all of which nowadays are captured by camera and sound recording, the masses are brought face to face with themselves. This process, whose significance need not be stressed, is intimately connected with the development of the techniques of reproduction and photography.”