HOPERAPERTA

Mimesis: the perfect replica

Or

On the lack of error in reproduction as the cause of the loss of aura by the (re)produced work.

By Andrea Schubert

We often hear today about AI and its ability to generate content on the basis of simple questions (input) which, in the creative processing of the machine, take on "original" textual or graphical forms (output). The result of the intelligent machine's "creativity," instructed over time with a multitude of data taken in various disorganized ways, is thus done perfectly, without possibility of error. Not even that possible glitch that occasionally occurs in the output of electronic machines is allowed.

Yet it was from a human, emotional glitch that absolute masterpieces of the last century were born. In an interview, Francis Bacon, telling of the origins of his own style, candidly admitted that they were the result of his own mistake in adjusting the timing of photographic shots taken in a dark gymnasium where wrestling matches were being held. Having printed the photos in black and white, the beauty of the mistake struck him so much that he replicated this distortion, this "slippage" on the canvas. A masterpiece from a mistake a machine could never make (at least until Hal's 9000 series).

But how many other mistakes have actually renewed art history? Who knows. Certainly something Picasso knew, who had this to say about the impossibility for the painter to imitate another artist's style, "at the very moment when you make a mistake you are yourself." ( https://www.hoperaperta.com/ha-mag-v-picasso-e-matisse)

The irreproducibility of the work and style determines that distance which, according to Benjamin, gives auraticity to works. Error, so human, brings art closer to its human essence, the inner essence and the one most distant from material, concrete, mechanical things that, by their nature, are mechanically reproducible.