Problem
In regards to the most photographed barn in America, In his influential essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," the cultural theorist Walter Benjamin argues that photographs and films strip their original objects of the "aura" of authenticity by removing them from the traditions and situations of which they are organically a part. One cannot photograph the entire material history of a work of art, after all. Murray argues that "every photograph" taken of the barn actually "reinforces the aura" it possesses. If photographs strip things of their aura of authenticity then how can this be? Describe the aura these pictures reinforce. What is unique or artistic about this barn, if anything? What do we see when we look within the barn's much-photographed aura?