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Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
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New Media and the Permanent Crisis of Aura

Jay David Bolter

Georgia Institute of Technology, jay.bolter{at}lcc.gatech.edu

Blair MacIntyre

Georgia Institute of Technology, blair.macintyre{at}cc.gatech.edu

Maribeth Gandy

Georgia Institute of Technology, maribeth.gandy{at}imtc.gatech.edu

Petra Schweitzer

Georgia Institute of Technology, petra.schweitzer{at}lcc.gatech.edu

Walter Benjamin is best known for his essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, (Benjamin, 1968b) in which he argues that film and other mechanical technologies are destroying the aura that had belonged to traditional art. In this article we apply Benjamin’s concept of aura to new (digital) media, and in particular to ‘mixed reality’, a group of technologies that blend computer-generated visual, aural, and textual information into the user’s physical environment. We argue that mixed reality increases the options for designer-artists and apparently allows the invocation of aura in new ways. Our culture’s pursuit of auratic experience remains problematic in mixed reality as it was for Benjamin in the case of film. New media maintain aura in a permanent state of oscillation or crisis, and this crisis is a key to understanding new media.

Key Words: augmented reality • aura • Walter Benjamin • media theory • remediation

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol. 12, No. 1, 21-39 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1354856506061550
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J. Knight and A. Weedon
Editorial
Convergence, November 1, 2008; 14(4): 371 - 373.
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