Paper short abstract:

If Benjamin bemoaned the loss of ‘aura’ and the original with mechanical reproduction, with the digital the copy too is dead, giving way to a slew of originals and even a new Originary.

Paper long abstract:

A direct offshoot of digital technology has been the discovery of 'multiplicity'. So even the idea of singularity has changed.

What is the connection between multiplicity and the digital ? At its simplest, there is no technical loss with successive generations. But the challenge is to not merely make 'copies' or even structural clones, but to actually explore variations. Or improvisations so one remains within the realm of art practice, rather than a truth-falsification debate.

Documentary, Documentation, Installation, Fiction - these are the genre-level 'differentiations' that have emerged with startling clarity. Polyphonic rhythms (not the ubiquitous loop) has replaced or 'branched out' from the simple linear. And we have to ask again what is meant by Analog and if it is truly obsolete. My own feeling is that it has merely turned Broadband. So we can talk today of temporal cubism, a continuous lateral and linear progression, vector not scalar, with volume as much as direction. Also analogy and the Sanskrit Alankar - figurative speech.

If Benjamin bemoaned the loss of 'aura' and the original with mechanical reproduction, today the copy too is dead, giving way to a slew of originals and perhaps even a new Originary. In place of the picture negative as Master, we have the entire Shooting Masters as Matrix from which different wholes emerge.

I will be happy to substantiate with extracts from 3 recent projects of mine.

And end with a small note on where its going for me - the Epic.