How many paintings are there of the Mona Lisa? One? Or hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions? Well if were to ever make your way to a flea market or a poster store just about anywhere, odds are, you will see a painting or picture of the Mona Lisa. And in this technological era, you can find one with the click of a button. See;
But does this make my Mona Lisa as authentic as the one sitting in the Louvre? The answer is a big fat NO. Well, according to Walter Benjamin at least. The same with the game Super Mario Clouds. Now if you did not know, Super Mario Clouds is in fact Mario Brothers, just completely stripped of everything except the clouds by someone who is not the original creator of Mario Brothers. And when I say COMPLETELY stripped of everything, I mean Everything except the clouds. In fact, if you would like to, you could take an old Mario Brothers cartridge and do this yourself shown here.
In this game, the most gameplay you will contribute is a right to left motion of your eyeballs. When I first began, I waited for something to happen. I even thought my computer was glitching for a second so I quit my browser and tried again and to no surprise, the same thing was there. I watched clouds, bit by bit, go across the screen. Professor Mandiberg pulling a fast one on us? Maybe not. The connection I wanted to touch on was Walter Benjamin and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin discusses the concept of authenticity, particularly in application to reproduction. He argues that the original artwork is independent of the copy, yet through the act of reproducing something is taken from the original by changing its context. Thus the “aura” of the original work is stripped in the reproduction of it. Cory Arcangel, in a sense, stripped Mario Brothers of its “aura”. Therefore, it is not art. And I very much so agree.
In conclusion, what is art? Similar to the idea of ‘Play’ as well as if something is a ‘game’ or not, there are many ideas, theories, and definitions thrown together to make some overall answer for what it is, but honestly, it is mostly all just someones opinion. But when it comes to this idea of recreating something and in that process, stripping it of its true artistic value (whatever that may be), I 100% agree that it is not art. If i painted the Mona Lisa exactly like Leonardo DiVinci, Same paint, same canvas, same everything down to the brush strokes. Does that make it art? Is it my personal unique image? Imagine if you, yes you, were cloned in a lab by the government. Is that clone, you? Eh, I think not. there is something in all of us that makes us very unique in our own way. Super Mario Clouds is unique, but not in its own way at all and therefore is not art.
jsurrell 