(Post)Modern Art (Pre- Class 2-8-10)

As soon as I read the title "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" I immediately remembered this same topic discussion in one of my sociology classes last semester. And in that class, we watched this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oqUd8utr14 ) of Andy Warhol using a computer to "paint" Debbie Harry, the lead singer of the band Blondie. Mind you, the video was taken in 1985 and the event was simply a publicity stunt for the AMIGO computer, but it embodies this idea of reproductive art. First, I'd like to say Warhol was a pivotal artist who, in his earlier and most famous works (Campbell's soup and Marilyn Monroe paintings) satirized how everything in our society is so easily reproduced and recognized, over and over. With that said, I think it's a little ironic how Warhol, in 1985, reproduced Debbie Harry, a music icon of the 1980s, on a computer. The "painting" of Harry actually looks like something any of us in this class could make in photoshop in a matter of minutes, but this time period, 1985, marks (in my mind, at least) the beginning of artistic reproduction, as it is seen our contemporary, postmodern society. Everything we consider art today, such as film, paintings, theatre, can be seen on the internet, filmed and reproduced through affordable, handheld cameras and (reference to the video I posted) literally printed and reproduced in our homes.