Mass Replication

           The commodification of art is definitely a big topic in terms of popular culture, because "art" is the main product. Anything created by various media (television, radio, film, etc.) is seen as an artful object that has a sole purpose: to make money. However, the amount of money that is profited is not the only focus of this commodification. Mass replication is perhaps the most important because of the increased consumerism that it brings. Products of media have become greatly accessible in the 21st century. 

For example, one can now find an online 360 degree virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. 

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

For years, people have travelled around the world to see the Chapel and now it is just a mouse click away!

What does this do to the art in the chapel and the chapel itself? It takes away the aura. The site attempts to create some sort of atmosphere while playing church choir music in the background. Even though the image may be replicated, the aura cannot. Visiting a place like the Sistine Chapel gives a sort of unexplainable religious experience because of the presence of history it holds. History can easily be replicated through text on a computer screen, but art (specifically painting in this case) offers much more than just the visual.

*SIDE NOTE: To explain this link between art and religious experience, I would like to share the amazing opportunity I had to see Leonardo DaVinci’s famous “Last Supper” painting. When I entered the room and laid eyes on the painting for the first time, it seemed as though each person in the painting was alive, especially Jesus Christ. I felt a presence within me as I looked at this painting. I decided to take off my seeing glasses so that I could look at the painting through my naked eye, and even through blurred vision I still felt as though I was in the presence of something so sacred that was one of, if not, the greatest representations of Jesus Christ with his disciples at his last supper.

Furthermore, what does this accessibility of art do to us as consumers? Does our appreciation of art falter? Google has launched an art project (www.googleartproject.com) that has virtual tours of various museums around the world, with extreme close up photographs of paintings. This accesibility certainly takes away from the element of surprise at seeing something for the first time, but the aura of the original art is not just simply diminished because there are photos of it on a computer. That atmosphere is still there, but cannot be experienced in the same way through a computer screen.