Cinema, Architecture and Conditions of Artistic Experience in Big Cities

Abstract

In the first part of the paper, we take Walter Benjamin’s essay on cinema as a reference when thinking about his prognostic values. We are interested in these prognoses that affirm the transformation of art and its function, and which call our attention to the loss of transcendence and the decline of the aura of the work of art. At the same time, they show possibilities that affirm the continuity of art with a different role. The form of art that is suitable for this reflection is the cinema, and the parallel drawn by the philosopher between cinema and architecture. Our intention is to reflect on this parallel and the urban interventions as artistic forms of aesthetic modernity. Then I propose the discussion of the notion of art out of axis. The axis, we think of something that organizes and defines. The proposal to think about art in Latin America is made thinking about the center-periphery axis. However, we can still consider another starting point, thus changing direction, a change that is not only geographic but of what will be the reference to think of art, taking into account the artistic production submitted to the market and the stock exchange. Nowadays, we seek to account for the phenomenon of urbanistic growth, and we remain perplexed by the force that assumed financial capitalism, which, now, not only transforms everything into the value of exchange but has also resulted in the loss of any meaningful reference to the original value.

Article received: December 10, 2019; Article accepted: January 31, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2020; Original scholarly paper