Postmodern Photography and Benjamin's Aura

In Crimp’s “The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism,” the author examines the presence and absence of aura in postmodern photography. In his essay, Crimp first introduces his multi-definitional concept of photographic presence. Counterintuitively, Crimp incorporates the sense of absence, as in a ghostly presence, within his definition of presence to interpret the role of postmodern photography in light of Benjamin’s aura. He argues instead of losing Benjamin’s aura as a result of mechanical reproduction, postmodern photography displaces this artistic aura by highlighting the absence of authenticity inherent in photography. By examining photographs of other photographic prints and still frame commercials, Crimp argues that ultimately argues that postmodern photography has “acquired an aura, only now it is a function not of presence but of absence.” (92) I found this idea to be interesting when juxtaposed to the concept of straight and documentary photography. In many ways, straight and documentary photography deal with presence and being. In straight and documentary photography, the photographer is there, at the site, to record at a precise moment and document a specific event. In many ways, this presence and being is also felt by the viewer. In an art gallery or in the viewer’s living room, these photographs meet the viewer half way, conferring on the viewer an emotional, spatial, and temporal presence. Crimp’s postmodern photography works against this. Instead of being transported to a new location and empathizing with the photographic subject, these photographs strive to distance the viewer from the subject. This distancing, however, is the product of mechanical reproduction. As a result, I do not find Crimp’s argument convincing, that simply by making the viewer aware of a photographic presence, photography is able to reacquire its sense of aura. As by making the viewer aware of the subject’s distance and ghostly presence, postmodern photographs serves to remove rather than affirm the spatial and temporal distance between the artist and the viewer.