Authenticity

I guess there has always been questions of the digital side of art and was it means for tradition hand made art. Theres no doubt that seeing The Last Supper in its original painted form has more of an aura around it then some scanned version on Google Images. But thats what reproduction has done to everything its touched. Things that can't be reproduced are valuable, simply because there's only one of them or one way of making them that is not well known. Those things have value and an 'aura'. But with modern technology anyone can create and reproduce things with the push of a few buttons.

It's happened with art, when now most people would have more artistic flair with a computer mouse rather than a paint brush. It's happened with music, when now anyone can paste a couple of samples together on their home computer and make a fine example of techno.

But this doesn't really ruin the art of these things. It really just makes a new genre of the art. The only way that a photoshop image would be authentic is in the Art of Digital Media. Because thats what it is. No-one is comparing digital art to traditional art. In fact the more something is ripped off with a lesser quality the more valuable the original becomes.

So I think that digital technology is hurting art or overwriting traditional art, its just creating a new genre.

Now to see or get an aura out of digital art I think you couldn't achieve it without knowing something about digital art or even being a digital artist yourself. You would personally need to know how hard it was to create the piece or art before you could really appreciate it. Similar to music really. It's hard to really appreciate some music once you know how easy it can be reproduced.

Now the only thing reproduction technology really hurts is currency. Case and point, America and there paper money. But enough about that.......