Humans generate millions of gigabytes of information on a daily basis, information that is seen as non-material but is actually lifted from a physical and decaying context.
Consciously or unconsciously, the physical object is preserved online through the act
of uploading and sharing it over the
Internet. As it is shared and reshared,
a single image is multiplied into several files through algorithms, resulting in its 'mechanical reproduction'.
Walter Benjamin argues that the aura, or
the allure, of a work of art, diminishes
each time it is reproduced.
In Benjamin's eyes, this is a negative effect, however,
in contemporary society, circulation has become more powerful than ownership and
originality through the rise of an open
Internet and social media sharing.
Virality has come to signify an market opportunity, a ripple through the Internet, something that in the dawn of the Internet was prevented at all costs.
This evolution in hypermedia gave birth to the Hyper Aura:
An enhanced evolution of singularity.
Mick Jongeling
Read the "HyperAura" essay