You are in TATE Liverpool.
(if: $paul is 1)[<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/IPad_2_White_on_table.jpg" width="600">
There is now a lonely [[iPad|iPadHome]] on the table.]
(else:)[<img src="http://wdl.tmimgcdn.com/img_articles/8378/2.jpg" width="600">
On the table is a [[piece of paper|Paul]].]
(set: $paul to 0)
(text-style: "italic")["The establishment of the fine arts and their division into various categories go back to a time that differ radically from ours and to people whose power over things and circumstances was minute in comparison with our own.
However the astounding growth that our resources have undergone in terms of their precision and adaptability will in the near future confront us with very radical changes indeed in the ancient industry of the beautiful.
In all arts there is a physical component that cannot continue to be considered and treated in the same way as before; no longer can it escape the effects of modern knowledge.
Neither matter, nor space, nor time is what, up until (print: 2015 - 1934) years ago, it always was. We must be prepared" ]
(text-style: "bold")[Paul Valéry] (text-style: "italic")[Pieces sur l'art] 1934
(set: $paul to 1)[[Stop looking at the piece of paper|Start]].
macros['getDate'] =
{
handler: function()
{
var currentTime = new Date();
var year = currentTime.getFullYear();
var paulsyear = 1934
insertText(year - paulsyear);
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<img src="https://ashleyattwood1.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/tl2.jpg" width="600">
Your Walter Benjamin App says "Go into the gallery and look around. Context is everything" you can see all sorts of paintings.
There is a painting to the [[left|Manet]] another to the [[right|Gainsborough]] and a sort of [[office space ahead|ArtOffice]]
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Thomas_Gainsborough_-_Mr_and_Mrs_Andrews.jpg" width="600">
The WB App speaks up: "John Berger once said on discussing this painting;
(text-style: "italic")["It is usually said that the oil painting in it's frame is like an imaginary window open on to the world...if one studies the culture of the European oil painting as a whole, and if one leaves aside it's own claims for itself it's model is not so much a framed window open onto the world, as a safe let into the wall, a safe in which the visible has been deposited"]
(text-style: "bold")[John Berger] (text-style: "italic")[Ways Of Seeing] 1972
They look like they might own alot. But they dont own this image any more. Even the owners of this image don't fully own it any more. It's on the internet. And that means the nature of it's ownership is very complicated. In some regards the actual instance and material context of looking at it is owned and surveilled"
<img src="http://podopodo.net/upload/article/01-Relational-Aesthetics.jpg" width="600">
The ArtOffice is a conceptual structure for an artist's practice that does not easily fit into the art market. It's a form of protest in a way. However despite that it's easily incorporated into traditional curatorial conceits. It feels like a waiting room: for the expectation of something; perhaps some kind of performative element of an emerging art collective's micro-residency. You might be able to watch the act of making or engage with the artistic process or artist themselves. Alternatively they might be at lunch. If so there is likely to be artefacts of their presence and work, depending on budget. Hey look there are some!
There are some [[French engravings in a display case!|FrenchEngravings]] Nice.
<img src="http://www.centroarte.com/images/manet/manet20.jpg" width="600">
Manet eh? Referencing other paintings. Well its a tradition. And a break from tradition. I know what you're thinking Walter Benjamin would not talk like that. Well Im just a simulation. Everything is desired to be simulated now. That's the ultimate end of art's trajectory perhaps. I don't think Manet saw that coming. And I doubt I would have seen the internet coming; a thing realising [['the Mass'|TheMass]] to an unimaginable degree.
It only has one App on it. Strange. You click on it.
"Hi I'm WB the Walter Benjamin App!" it says.
It continues:
"I'm a Text App to guide you through an imaginary gallery. But I'm based on some of his writings." Images of works and titles flash past as Amazon ads.
"I'm like a fitness app for your art critical faculties. You are probably used to this idea of an App as Art. That's because of the implications of my work (text-style: "italic")[The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction] 1936. And it's also probably to do with the militarization of every aspect of the public sphere through the development of the Internet"
You can also see the main [[gallery|gallery]]
<img src="http://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/erotica19.gif" width="600">
Hey who would have thought this was from the 19th century. It's almost interactive. This idea of interaction is interesting. I would have been interested in this anyway. It's another consequence of the ease of reproduction of images. The reproduction of this image is just the tip of a recursive iceberg ever unfolding across the structure of cloud-based information services.
(text-style: "italic")["The Mass is a matrix from which currently all customary responses to works of art are springing newborn. Quantity has now become quality: the very much greater masses of participants have produced a changed kind of participation."]
(text-style: "bold")[Walter Benjamin] (text-style: "italic")[The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction] 1936