Return to Saussure

Modern Times. AI art Introduction When Walter Benjamin wrote his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in 1935, cinema and photography had already unsettled long-standing notions about originality, creativity, and aesthetic authority. His central thesis — that technical reproduction dissolved the “aura” of the artwork — pointed toward a profound transformation in how art was produced and perceived. Today, almost a century later, the rise of artificial intelligence and algorithmic creativity compels us to revisit these very categories. Concepts such as “genius,” “authenticity,” or “eternal value,” once stable in earlier epochs, now appear unstable once more. Like signs in Saussure’s linguistic system, they acquire significance only in relation to one another and within the material conditions that structure art’s existence. This article traces these concepts across three stages: before Benjamin, during the era of mechanical reproduction, and in our current age...