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lity). 122 Thus it shares a characteristic with music, but not with painting, that was noted
by Benjamin. He quotes Leonardo:
Painting is superior to music because it does not have to die as soon as it is
brought to life, as is the case with unfortunate music ... Music, which disappears as soon
as it is created, comes second to painting which, with the introduction of varnish, has become
everlasting. 123
The video work possesses a uniqueness which - in contrast to Benjamin's criterion
for the auratic uniqueness of the original work of art - does not reside in the Here and
Now, but precisely in its temporal duration.
And the "time-structure" is not just a necessary "starting point" as in the organisation
of any cinematic movement. It can definitely be seen as the externalised essence
of video works of art. 124
So much for the analogue video, in digital, virtual space, however, every single pixel
is a discrete event in time, and therefore an original. So, in response to the title I was
given for my talk "The Concept of the Original in the Age of Virtual Media", I would like
to modify this as follows: In virtual media space, only the discrete bit can be regarded as
a temporary original - as a "unique appearance" in the sense of Walter Benjamin, but devoid
of his 'Messianism', and no longer "in the distance" but in time - in the televisional,
time-based media of transmission: "Translatability, after all, comes about only in
time and for a time, and translation is not a mere transcription". 125
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Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit [second version], in: Gesammelte
Schriften, ed. Rolf Tiedemann/Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Frankfurt/Main (Suhrkamp) 21978-89,
Vol 1.2 (Abhandlungen) 1978, 431-508 (479).
2 Peter Μ Spangenberg, Lemma Aura, in: Karlheinz Barck u.a. (Hg.), Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Historisches
Wörterbuch in siebben Bänden, Bd. 1, Stuttgart/Weimar 2000, 400-416 (402).
3 Quoted from: Jochen Hörisch, Ende der Vorstellung. Die Poesie der Medien, Frankfurt/Main (Suhrkamp) 1999,
i85f.
4 Spangenberg 2000, 403ff.
5 In his review of Susan Buck-Morss, Dialektik des Sehens. Walter Benjamin und das Passagen-Werk, transl. Joachim
Schulte, Frankfurt/Main (Suhrkamp) 2000, in: zitty (Berlin) 15/2000, 58.
6 Stefan Krempl, Kommt die GEMA-Gebühr für den Computer? (in conversation with Peter Bartodziej),
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/on/247i/i.html (27 Sept 1998).
7 Kunstwerk, version 2, 475
8 Paul Valery, Die Eroberung der Allgegenwärtigkeit, in: idem, Über Kunst. Essays [La conquete de l'ubiquite,
in: Pieces sur l'art, Paris, no year], Frankfurt/Main (Suhrkamp) 1959, 46-51 (47).
9 Roger Blumberg, Contribution to the discussion at the Colloquium Excavating the archive: new technologies
of memory, Parsons School of Design, 3 June 2000, New York.
10 Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, version 1 (prod. 1935),
in: Benjamin, GS, Vol. 1/2 (1978): 438t.
11 Spangenberg 2000, 406
12 Notice from Detlef Borchers in the column Online in: Die Zeit No. 30, 20 July 2000, 26.
13 Tilman Baumgärtel, Besseres Fernsehen, schöne Momente. Ein Gespräch zwischen Klaus vom Bruch und Daniel
Pflumm, in: Kunstforum International, Vol 148, December 1999-January 2000, 98-105 (101).
14 Hans Ulrich Reck, Erinnern und Macht, Vienna (WUV) 1997, 151.
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