International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011 1

New Media Art and a

Contemporary Revision of
the Term ‘Cultural Industry’
of Theodor Adorno
Claudia Sandoval Romero, University of Applied Arts and Academy of Fine Arts, Austria
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ABSTRACT

This article examines some of the ideas that Theodor Adorno elucidated around the term “cultural
industry”, compiling mainly the ideas published in the text “Aesthetic Theory” of 1970. The term
“cultural industry” is also contextualized in the article with the reflexions that Adorno previously
exposed since 1947. A dialog is created with the proposal of the North American theoretician and
artist Martha Rosler to understand the chronological development of art before, during, and after
Adorno. Regarding the relation between art and autonomy the ideas of Adorno offer elements to
understand contemporary art production. This way and closing the article, the author also discusses
contemporary new media art manifestations, which are analyzed in key of terms such as
autonomy/cultural industry in relation to the proposals of the Brazilian theoretician Arlindo Machado

Keywords: Adorno, Aesthetics, Art, Autonomy of Art, Commerce, Cultural Industry, New Media Art
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INTRODUCTION

Since its mere emergency art has been asked This way, strongly contemporary
about its autonomy in relation with its social Adorno’s ideas about the “hitlerian strategies”
role and with the industry. At the same time art (Adorno, 1947, pp. 16-17) of the mass media,
has always been the deposit of romantic ideals help us to understand the idealism of Adorno’s
and the dreamed place from where society is art conceptions, through the approach to his
criticized. Theodor Adorno was one of the historical moment and his own personal life.
pioneer authors who reflected about the The present article briefly describes
relation of art industry with communication what Theodor Adorno reflected about the
media such as the TV, which in 1947, time of relation between art and the cultural industry in
Adorno’s first reflections, was getting his posthumous and probably most influential
consolidated1. The time of Adorno appears publication “Aesthetic Theory” of 1970.
similar to ours of the consolidation of the Subsequently the term is
internet, making his reflexions pertinent for a contextualized with previous reflections of the
critique of the media art of our time. author since 1947.
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 2 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011

Together with the research of the immediatism of art to the society is planned to
North American theoretician and artist Martha deceive (Adorno, 1970, p. 376). On the other
Rosler, the ideas of Adorno are shown in a hand, the cultural industry defends that art
parallel to the moments of art before, during suffered a process in which it ceases being
and after Adorno’s time. what it is and loses its specificity becoming
To conclude, contemporary new media consumer goods such as art pieces and
art manifestations are analyzed in the article in catharsis (Adorno, 1970, p. 34).
key of the couple autonomy/cultural industry, In the following paragraphs we will
this time in relation to the proposals of the then explain how for Adorno the art and its
Brazilian theoretician Arlindo Machado. catharsis became consumer goods.

“CULTURAL INDUSTRY” Art Pieces as Consumer Goods

INSIDE THE “AESTHETIC
THEORY” OF 1970 For Adorno indubitable symptoms of the
tendency of the cultural industry are the
In this first section some of the different passion for what is palpable, as well as for not
conceptions of the cultural industry will be letting any work be what it is, accommodating
brought together in order to create a them, while diminishing the distance in
compilation of the different ideas that illustrate relation to the spectator (Adorno, 1970, p. 32).
the complexity of the term proposed by For the author considering art “vested
Theodor Adorno. interests” means to classify subjectively art
This way, it will be described the idea inside the consumer goods. He specifies the
of cultural industry as a factor that made complexity in the relation with art as goods
possible for art to become a consumer good, when he hopes that “at least” art was simply
understanding art also like the catharsis that consumable, then, this way, the relation with
the appreciation of an art piece offers. art would be based on the mere relation with
the consumer goods. But for Adorno in a time
of super production the value of use of art is
Cultural Industry and also problematic since it is submitted to the
Consumer Goods secondary delight of prestige, of fashion and
then, finally, submitted to the own character of
Theodor Adorno explains in “a Critic to the merchandise. This way, of the autonomy of art
Cultural Industry”, section of the book just remains the fetishistic character of
“Aesthetic Theory” published in 1970, that as merchandise, being this a regression to the
far as art corresponds to a social manifested archaic fetishism in the origin of art (Adorno,
necessity, it transforms itself mostly in a 1970, p. 32).
business governed by the profit, which persists On the other hand, the cultural
as long as it is profitable. By doing so, art industry’s praxis advocates for a servile respect
makes itself aside, confirming being nothing for empirical details, this is, for the shape,
but something already dead (Adorno, 1970, p. allying this way the praxis of the cultural
34). industry with the ideological manipulation
Adorno exposes the means used by the (Adorno, 1970, p. 336). This makes believe
cultural industry in order to transform art that the importance of art lies on its technique,
pieces into merchandise when he makes clear and on its final shape, which is equal to its
that the ‘naïve’ people of the cultural industry, fetishistic character. And for Adorno, the
avid of merchandise, locate themselves closer sublimation of the form is a vehicle of
to art, perceiving how art is inadequate to ideology.
accompany the process of social life. Adorno For the author a type of art that
argues that the creation of this proximity to art prevails in the cultural industry establishes its
only intensifies the cultural industry, as well significance on its “value of exposition”,
as, at the same time, here the idea of the
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 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011 3

instead of its “auratical”, “cultuai”, value and closer to the public, the notion of noble art
(Adorno, 1970, p. 73). has been, since Baudelaire, an accomplice of
At the same time the cultural industry the privilege (Adorno, 1970, pp. 354-355).
that transforms art in merchandise, also feigns Lastly, concerning the transformation
the catharsis in the shape of a consumable of the catharsis into merchandise, for Adorno,
aesthetical stimulus, as it will be explained art transforms itself into a consumable product
below. when, in an effort for not to be a good, it
becomes a spiritual matter available at all the
Catharsis as a Consumer Good levels of life. Being this, as mentioned before,
another kind of good that is taken and
For Adorno the catharsis experienced through administrated by the cultural industry (Adorno,
the appreciation of art pieces is taken and 1970, p. 354).
administrated by the cultural industry and, by This way, the art pieces turned into
doing so, the aesthetical experience is no more consumer goods and developed certain
sublime but one that makes possible its characteristics within the spirit of the cultural
commercialization. industry that Adorno explains as follows.
According to the theoretician, the real
catharsis of art consists in the loss of oneself in Spirit of the Consumer Goods
the perception of the own limits and finitude
not in a particular satisfaction of the ‘I’ or in One of the characteristics of art as a consumer
the pleasure proposed by the cultural industry. good is the ridiculous seriousness. Adorno
For Adorno the idea of a profound catharsis is points to the fact that the cultural industry is
nonsense, is madness, for the cultural industry nowadays the only space where the spirit of
(Adorno, 1970, pp. 364-365). seriousness of art appears, but a distorted
In the same line of Hegel’s conception seriousness, clarifying that when art is serious
about the freedom to the object, Adorno argues is posing of not being modern art, turning art
that the aesthetical sublimation, guarantied in itself into something ridiculous (Adorno, 1970,
the past the dignity of the spectator who, in a p. 65). Simultaneously, for Adorno, if art
spiritual experience, becomes a subject through pieces were absolute responsible, it would
his/her alienation to the object of art. And this make art sterile.
conception opposes the “philistines” The complexity of this hypothesis
aspirations that demand art to give something appears when Adorno exposes that at the same
(Adorno 1970, p. 32). time art cannot be responsible but if it is
This “something to give” is understood exclusively irresponsible, art is nothing but a
like the reductionist process in which art game. This way, for the author, it is only in
becomes a thing and a medium for the use of front of the cultural industry that art keeps its
the psychological processes of the spectator seriousness (Adorno, 1970, p. 65), but a fake
(Adorno, 1970, p. 33). new one that makes possible the
Secondly, to create a market from art commercialization of art pieces.
some of the strategies used by the cultural Regarding the irresponsibility of art,
industry are the progressive subjective Adorno explains that to be delirious is for art a
differentiation of the creators of art, as well as critic to the social praxis, a mimetic residue of
the intensification and diffusion of the domain art, and the price of art’s impermeability. But
of the aesthetical stimulus (Adorno, 1970, p. in this barbarian moment, the irresponsibility
354). Therefore, art becomes inferior art and of art transforms it in mediocrity and is only
entertainment, as well as art is manifested like used by the cultural industry as profit in the
obvious. This process legitimates the ideology shape of “the fun” of art; this is, in the shape of
of the cultural industry, an ideology that made a cultivated puerility of art (Adorno, 1970, p.
art popular and closer to the public. But here 181). In a cycle, the puerility, which shares the
for Adorno, the popular art is just a strategy objectives of the anti-intellectualism of art,
that the cultural industry uses to profit. degenerates directly in cultural industry and is
Conversely to this idea of the art made popular
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 4 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011

then fed by this, being, in this movement, Autonomy of Art

preserved (Adorno, 1970, p. 309).
Ergo the question that would follow is: As a solution for the autonomy of art inside the
“do we need art?” and if so, then, how to make context where the cultural industry reigns,
it possible outside of the cultural industry? this Adorno describes the place of art works as its
is, autonomous? own. Not the place of art in relation to any
social function.
The Necessity of Art For Adorno when art crystallizes as a
specific thing in itself -instead of opposing the
According to Adorno, the necessity of art existent social rules or instead of qualifying
within the context of the cultural industry is a itself as “socially useful”-, criticizes the
creation of the cultural industry. society because of its simple existence.
For the author, the first time that the This, according to the author, has been
masses were confronted with art was through reproved for puritans of all confessions
the mechanical medium of reproducibility because what exists purely, completely
offered by the cultural industry. structured according to its immanent law,
The increase of the necessity of art for exercises a critic without words, and
the masses becomes thus suspicious, since the denounces the degradation of society. This is,
cultural industry hides behind it. For Adorno, the society of exchange where everything
the fact that the cultural industry validates art, exists only for something else.
not only raises doubts, but would also not be This way, the asocial aspect of art is a
sufficient to assure the justification of art, certain denial of a certain society. But
since it emerges from an area external to art furthermore, for the autonomous art applies the
(Adorno, 1970, p. 34). idea that from the distance, art leaves intact the
In this context, clarifies Adorno, the society from which it feels horror (Adorno,
one who defends art equalizes it to the 1970, p. 253).
ideologies of the cultural industry (Adorno, At the same time for Adorno, art keeps
1970, p. 34). itself alive only because of its strength of
Regarding the necessity of art, Adorno resistance: Its contribution to society is not the
explains that the aesthetical necessity is a communication with society, but a resistance
concept slightly vague and unarticulated, while to it (Adorno, 1970, p. 254).
at the same time the practices of the cultural Thanks to the complexity of this
industry didn’t produce the many changes they context, the autonomy of art is conceived by
want us to believe, and that we are taking for Adorno as a utopia, considering the fact that
granted. art emerges in relation to the manipulation
For Adorno the necessity of art is in great size offered by the cultural industry (Adorno, 1970,
ideology. For him, it would be possible to live p. 33).
without art, not only objectively, but also in Even though for the author the
the consumer’s psyche, who is suggested – autonomy of art is an utopia, the author
constantly and without cost- to change their envisions a solution, a space where the cultural
taste, since he/she follows the way of the industry cannot reign, when he claims that all
smallest resistant: The shape of culture that these reflections can begin with the fact that, in
matters to the cultural industry is one without reality, something aspires objectively to art,
complexion and simple enough to be able to beyond the veil woven by institutions and fake
profit from it. The cultural goods are here a necessities. For the author this would be then
naïve and affirmative image of the culture an art that evidences what the veil hides
(Adorno, 1970, p. 361). (Adorno, 1970, p. 34).
Regarding the value of art, although
Adorno recognizes that provocative effects of
art are quickly dissipated, he moreover
identifies that artworks offer a practical effect

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 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011 5

in the transformation of consciousness The origin of the cultural industry can

(Adorno, 1970, p. 272). be located, according to Adorno, from the
These possible solutions to the economical point of view when merchants
autonomy of art were only conceived by the where looking for new possibilities of
Adorno of the “Aesthetic Theory” in 1970. application of the capital in more developed
Previous to this text, Adorno pronounced countries (Adorno, 1968, p. 63).
overwhelmingly the relation between cultural In addition to this, Adorno recognizes that
industry and art, with less than few possible authors like Brecht und Suhrkamp reflected in
solutions. the decade of 1930s about the fact that cultural
Following, a brief tracking of the term merchandises of the industry are oriented
cultural industry will be exposed, as well as towards the direction of commercialization and
some more reflections about the term and its not according to art’s own content or adequate
implications that were exposed prior to the configuration (Adorno, 1968, p. 62).
significant publication of 1970.
Subject Means Object
THE TERM CULTURAL INDUSTRY
Another aspect reflected for Adorno since the
Brief Trajectory of the Term text published in 1968 is the concern about the
state of consciousness and unconsciousness of
The term Cultural Industry didn’t appear the millions of people, which is defined by the
first time in Adorno’s posthumous publication cultural industry.
“Aesthetic Theory”, in 1970. As Adorno In terms of the author, for the cultural industry
himself mentions in “Résumé über the masses are nothing but a secondary factor,
Kulturindustrie” -a text that was published in a calculation element, and an accessory to the
1968 based on the radio conferences machine. The consumer is in this system not a
broadcasted in 1962 in Germany-, the first king, as the cultural industry would like to
time that the term ‘cultural industry’ was used, make believe. He/she is not the subject but the
was in the book “Dialektik der Aufklärung”, object of that industry. And at the same time
published by Adorno and Horkheimer in the cultural industry reinforces the mentality of
Amsterdam in 1947(2). the masses, by taking this mentality as
According to Adorno (1968, p. 61), the something given a priori and immutable
authors initially used the term ‘mass culture’ (Adorno, 1968, p. 62).
that was subsequently substituted by for For Adorno the interest of the cultural
‘cultural industry’. And they did so intending industry in people only takes place when they
to exclude the defenders of the cultural are considered clients or employees (Adorno,
industry who aim it to be a sort of culture 1947, p. 15).
emerging spontaneously from the masses. At the same time, in the publication of 1968,
For Adorno the cultural industry differs from Adorno exposes a diminishment in the spiritual
this radically: the cultural industry is the character of art pieces inside the cultural
deliberated integration from above, of its industry, as explained in the next section.
consumers. It forces the union of domains,
separated since thousand years, of superior art Individualization and the Spirit of
and inferior art, prejudicing both: superior art Creations
experience and the frustration of its
seriousness, on benefit of the speculation about For the theoretician, every practice of the
their effect. cultural industry transfers the motivation of
Through civilized domestication inferior art profit to spiritual creations, and from the
loses its element of resistant and rude nature, moment these merchandises assure the position
inherent to it when the social control is not of its producers in the market, this motivation
absolute (Adorno, 1968, p. 61). contaminates the spiritual creations (Adorno,
1968, p. 62).
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6 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011
 The products of the spirit, according to Critique
the author, once inscribed inside the style of
the cultural industry, are not also merchandises The main points of critique distinguished in
but they are integrally merchandises (Adorno, Adorno’s early reflections are, first of all, the
1968, p. 64). For Adorno the cultural industry exhortation to not to take cultural industry
forces the spiritualization of distraction seriously. It is something suspicious, since in
(Adorno, 1968, p. 13) the name of the social role of the cultural
At the same time that in this process, every industry judgments are repressed or eliminated
product is presented like individual, about its quality, its authenticity or falsity, as
considering this a kind of individuality that well as questions about the aesthetical level of
contributes to strengthen the ideology its message.
(Adorno, 1968, p.62): An ideology that For the author, to take seriously the
defends the system of the ‘vedettes’ taken from proportion of its unquestioned role means to
the individualist art and its commercial take it critically serious and not to curve
exploitation. oneself in front of its monopoly (Adorno,
In opposition, when it comes to defend 1968, p. 68).
themselves from the critics, the promoters of In our current time authors like
the cultural industry have the pleasure to claim Laymert Garcia dos Santos propose the same
that what they provide is not art but an debate in publications like “To Politicize the
industrial product (Adorno, 1968, p. 66). New Technologies”, 2002, this time in relation
The cultural industry transforms the with the internet, the digital era, the genetic
fabrication of a simple good will in public manipulation and nanotechnology. For the
relations, without the relation with the author it is necessary to politicize the debate
producers or with any particular object of about technology and its relation with the
sales. It looks for a client to sell him/her a total capital, instead of leaving this debate to the
and not critic agreement (Adorno, 1968, p. 64). transnational industries, as the establishment
prescribes.
Autonomy of Art Seen by the Adorno of For Adorno the justification of the
1947 and 1968 cultural industry is contradictory once the
“lawyers” of the cultural industry defend it
Regarding the autonomy of art, Adorno claims with the excuse of the “not intention to be art”.
since his previous publications to the Once again, the ideology excuses the
“Aesthetic Theory” in 1970, that pure art responsibility in relation to what maintains the
pieces that deny society’s mercantile character, business alive. But at the same time this type
because of following its own rules, become of no-art is also referred to the fact that even
also merchandise: the worst movie is presented objectively as an
Until XVIII c the protection of the maecenas art piece inside the cultural industry.
defended artists from the market, but these The critique of Adorno focuses in
artists were instead subjected to the maecenas media like radio, cinema and the TV, pointing
and his wishes. For the author, the freedom of how the products they offer, like the
the great modern artwork lives from the sentimental mail and horoscope, are intended
anonymity of the market (Adorno, 1947, p. to be inoffensive and democratic because they
21). obey to a demand. But these demands were
The autonomy of art almost never previously stipulated.
existed in a pure form and was always marked The defenders also claim that these
by connections of effect. Nevertheless, with manifestations bring all kinds of benefits like
the cultural industry, this autonomy sees itself the diffusion of information and advices,
in the limit of being abolished. And this is a while, at the same time, it acts as a reliever of
process that occurs with or without the tension.
conscious will of its promoters (Adorno, 1968,
p. 63)(3).

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But this information is poor or meaningless, same time, as the author provocatively argues,
like proves a sociological study about the level “nobody will be cold or have hunger: whoever
of political information found in these media feels hunger or cold, will end in a
(Adorno, 1968, p. 67). At the same time that in concentration camp”. This sentence, emerged
case these media disseminate informations, from the hitlerian Germany, could “shine as a
these are simply futilities, or even worse, they slogan” of the cultural industry, where to be
are shameless conformist standards of the outsider is the most serious guilt (Adorno,
behavior. This all, only concludes for Adorno 1947, pp. 16-17).
in the idea that “it is now more real than it The compensatory satisfaction that the cultural
never intended to be, that the world wants to be industry offers to people when it awakes in
deceived” (Adorno, 1968, p. 68). them the sensation of comfort, of a world in
As a consequence of these processes, what is order, frustrates them in their own happiness,
firstly affected is the formation of individuals which it deceptively supplies (Adorno, 1968,
as explained in the next paragraphs. p. 70).
Adorno concludes about the lack of
A Critique to the Lack of Formation of individualization that impedes the formation of
Individuals autonomous and independent individuals, able
to judge and decide consciously (Adorno,
In the previous reflections to the text 1968, p. 70). As they constitute the previous
“Aesthetic Theory” Adorno presents a more condition to democracy, is here easy to
strengthened connection within the political imagine what for this is convenient.
implications of the cultural industry. In general terms, it is noticeable how
For him, the critique to the cultural industry in the tone and ideas of Adorno in “Dialektik der
relation to the impossibility of creation of Aufklärung”, 1947, is softened in the text of
individuality is based on the imperative of the 1968 “Résumé über Kulturindustrie“, and
cultural industry according to the idea of “you become more abstract in the late “Aesthetic
must subjugate”, without indicating to what. Theory” of 1970. At the same time that the
This way the cultural industry impels to harsh critiques, even more the ones that made a
subjugate to whatever is already given and to connection between the ideals of the cultural
what -as a reflection of its power and industry and the ones of the hitlerian Germany,
omnipresence-, everybody, -this is, the other-, tend to dissapear in Adorno’s discourse of the
thinks. last times.
As a conclusion of this process, Also, Adorno is important to us because, as it
through the ideology of the cultural industry, was already mentioned, he is one of the
conformism substitutes consciousness, and this pioneers in interpreting the art industry
conformism is created in key of the cultural nowadays as we will explain.
industry’s ruminations. This means that these
are not rules for a happy life, neither a new AN APPROACH TO ADORNO
kind of moral responsibility, but the
exhortations to conform to what is behind the Adorno contributed with tools of analysis to
interests of the power (Adorno, 1968, p. 69). understand the relation between art and
As a critic to the conformism that the cultural industry in the current time. Diverse
industry creates, Adorno asseverates that contemporary authors like Martha Rosler and
without confessing it, the spectators of these Arlindo Machado have also reflected about this
media sense that their lives become intolerable topic, and this way it is possible to bring them
if they don’t hold to satisfactions which, truly, together and complete the trace of history
are not any satisfaction (Adorno, 1968, p. 68). allowing them to dialog and describe the
In this context, the one who doubts of the context since 1947 until the present days.
potency of monotony is a maniac. While at the

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 8 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011

The autonomy of Art: Adorno and direct patronage and commissions from the
Martha Rosler Church and aristocrats declined”- became
possible for painters and sculptors to be
As a way to complete Adorno’s ideas about the independent enough to be critic.
autonomy of art, here is exposed the reflexion But this criticism would not exclude the fact
of the artist and theoretician Martha Rosler, that a type of “art that exhibits an imperfect
building a past-present-and-future chart in allegiance to the ideological structures of
relation to Adorno’s time. social elites has often been poorly received”.
And this would mean that to step outside the
Before Adorno’s Time ambit of patronage or received opinion, meant
“losing one’s livelihood or, in extreme
“ (…) social negativity was a central element situations, one’s life” (Rosler, 2010).
of the Frankfurt School, as exemplified by For Adorno the autonomy of art was
Adorno’s insistence, against Brecht and seen as almost inexistence as far as pure art
Walter Benjamin, pointing to the fact that art pieces that deny society’s mercantile character,
in order to be appropriately negative must because of following its own rules, become
remain autonomous, above partisan political also merchandise (Adorno, 1947, p. 21).
struggles” (Rosler, 2010). Contrary to what Martha Rosler points,
the patronage for Adorno signified a solution
But different to Adorno, for Martha Rosler the for the autonomy of art from the market, which
alliance between artists and social at the same time meant an opposite way of
phenomenon during the Industrial Revolution losing its autonomy in order to satisfy the
pointed to the liberation of the media of the patrons’ wills.
time benefiting artistic freedom. For Adorno, until XVIII c the
protection of the maecenas defended artists
“Artists working in a variety of media and form the market, but these instead where
cultural registers, from high to low, expressed subjected to the maecenas and their wishes.
positions on the political ferment of the early The freedom of the great modern artwork lives
Industrial Revolution. One might find of the anonymity of the market (Adorno, 1947,
European artists exhibiting robust support for p. 21).
revolutionary ideals or displaying
identification with provincial localism, with During Adorno’s Time
the peasantry or with the urban working
classes, especially using fairly ephemeral For Rosler the time of Adorno, first half of the
forms (such as the low-cost prints available in twentieth century,
great numbers) (...) New forms of subjectivity
and sensibility were defined and addressed in “Consisted on a prodigious industrialization
different modalities (the nineteenth century and capital formation, witnessed population
saw the development of popular novels, mass- flows from the impoverished European
market newspapers, popular prints, theater, countryside to sites of production and inspired
and art), even as censorship, sometimes with millenarian conceits that impelled artists and
severe penalties for transgression, was social critics of every stripe to imagine the
sporadically imposed from above” (Rosler, future. We may as well call this modernism.
2010). And we might observe, briefly, that modernism
(inextricably linked, needless to say, to
Even though it is a complex labor to modernity) incorporates technological
define clear limits between tendencies, to this optimism and its belief in progress, while anti-
respect, Rosler argues that precisely only a modernism sees the narrative of technological
couple of hundred years ago, -“as the old change as a tale of broad civilizational
political order crumbled under the changes decline, and thus tends toward a romantic view
wrought by the Industrial Revolution, and of nature” (Rosler, 2010).

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 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011 9

Adorno interprets in this context a new death items in a signature brand of object
of art as he perceived how through the process production” (Rosler, 2010).
in which art persists as long as it is profitable,
art makes itself aside, confirming being As Rosler manifests, the market forces, as well
nothing but something that is already dead as the institutional professionalization of the
(Adorno, 1970, p. 34). art world, were stronger than the fight against
To complete the trace of this aspect for the lack of autonomy. But it was only possible
the current time, and in words of Rosler, in in this context that media art manifestations
2008 the real estate market brought down appeared to question the lack of autonomy.
much of the world economy, taking the art Like in the cycle of “work’s production,
market with it (Rosler, 2010). What in relation absorption and neutralization”, the search for
to the capitalized idea of art for Adorno this autonomy is followed by the scope of the
would mean that what was as well brought cultural industry. Like this, it declares art what
down during the economical fall, was not just a was supposed to be anti-art, looking for new
market created around art pieces, but the very means of commerce.
same art which grew until the current time in This way, Adorno and Rosler agree with the
relation to its market. It is peculiar to perceive fact that what was left of the robust political,
how since Hegel’s death of art in the beginning cultural and artistic manifestations of 1960 was
of the XIX century, authors like Adorno and nothing but the development of new strategies
Rosler keep reflecting about new deaths of art. of the cultural industry in order to maintain the
Martha Rosler’s perspective adds commercialization of art.
clarity to the last years of life of Adorno and The fact that the cultural industry changes its
the ones that followed his death in 1968. For strategies with time in order to maintain art as
the theoretician the decade of 1960s consisted a consumer good, which was observed by
in Adorno, didn’t alter after his lifetime. On the
contrary it became more complex as explained
“A robust moment, if not of outspoken as follows.
criticality in art, then of artists unrest, while
the culture at large, especially the civil rights / After Adorno’s Life
youth culture/ counterculture /antiwar
movement, was more than restive, attempting To illustrate the complexity of the autonomy of
to re-envision and remake the cultural and art after the time of Adorno, it is pertinent to
political landscape. Whether they abjured or consider what Rosler specifiesabout the late
expressed the critical attitudes that were still 1960s when in the United States
powerfully dominant in intellectual culture,
artists were chafing against what they “President Johnson’s Great Society included
perceived as a lack of autonomy, made plain an expansive vision of public support for the
by the grip of the market, the tightening noose arts. In addition to direct grants to institutions,
of success (though still nothing in comparison to critics, and to artists, nonprofit, artist-
to the powerful market forces and institutional initiated galleries and related venues received
professionalization at work in the current art Federal money. This led to a great expansion
world). In the face of institutional and market of the seemingly uncapitalizable arts like
ebullience, the 1960s saw several forms of performance, and video, whose main audience
revolt by artists against commodification, was other artists. Throughout the 1970s, the
including deflationary tactics against ideological apparatuses of media, museum,
glorification. One may argue about each of and commercial gallery were deployed in
these efforts, but they nevertheless asserted attempts to limit artist’s autonomy, bring them
artistic autonomy from dealers, museums, and back inside the institutions, and recapitalize
markets, rather than, say, producing fungible art. (…) Art educators began slowly adopting
the idea that they could sell their departments
and schools as effective in helping their
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 10 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011

students find gallery representation by words no infamy is softened when it is

producing a fresh new line of work” (Rosler, declared as such (Adorno, 1968, p. 68).
2010). About the autonomy of art, Rosler
points to a context where as she explains, “how
With the apparition of new patronages like the long can the academy of art success without
own government art becomes more restricted the galleries?” At the same time, for the
of its autonomy, being this the new faces of the theoretician, artists are stubborn and there are
cultural industry. This way its autonomy always artworks, or art “actions,” that are
becomes every time a more intricate dance of situated outside the art world or that “cross-
interests, at the point that nowadays it is list” themselves in and outside the golden
pertinent to ask -without this being a rhetorical ghettos. For the author, the art market doesn’t
question-, like the seminar of Univ.-Prof. Dr. mean it all: “It is not the market alone, after all,
Violetta Waibel at the University of Vienna: with its hordes of hucksters and advisers, and
“Do artworks exist? How are they possible?” bitter critics, that determines meaning and
For Rosler the only possible solution is resonance: there is also the community of
to consider that “these, then, are not artists and the potential counterpublics they
abandonments of art world participation but implicate” (Rosler, 2010).
acceptance that these institutions are the proper It is important to follow the trace in the
– perhaps the only - platform for artists” search of both authors regarding the autonomy
(Rosler, 2010). of art, as something superior to a commercial
The theoretician finds then a positive intention; this is, headed towards an intention
general solution on the interpretation of the inside its own manifestation. And it is
changes between art and industry that affects important because it could give us the clues to
not just art, but also the way of actively live in understand the complexity of the time we live,
society, based on the fact that the new ultimate objective of art’s expression.
movements occupy “a middle region between Finally, since the decade of 1960s and
‘individual and collective’” and so have the with the apparition of a strong tool like the
possibility of engineering a different mass media to control and distribute art, new
relationship to society, state, and capital. For ways to make art also emerged as a
the author the new forms of communication consequence and as a contrary position to this
can produce “a radically new form of tendency. As Martha Rosler mentions even
democracy” (Rosler, 2010). inside the strengthened cultural industry
This conclusion of the present time through the use of the media, also appeared a
would be a solution that contradicts what
Adorno reflected about the lack of autonomy “So-called ‘dematerialization’: the production
in the creation of individuals at the end of the of low-priced, often self-distributed
1960s, also in terms of individuals who keep multiples;(…); the development of multimedia
alive the apparatus called democracy without or intermedia and other ephemeral forms such
any critical formation, being this maintained as smoke art or performances that defied
by the information spread through the cultural documentation; dance based on ordinary
industry (Adorno, 1968, p. 70). movements; the intrusion or foregrounding of
On the other hand Rosler provokes language, violating a foundational modernist
with the idea about “whether choosing to be an taboo, and even the displacement of the image
artist means aspiring to serve the rich“. With by words in Wittgensteinian language games
the new global economy relations the idea here and conceptual art; the use of mass-market
exposed by Rosler as typical of the United photography; sculpture made of industrial
States can be generalized. But also Adorno elements; earth art; architectural
explores this axis, noticing that this relation is deconstructions and fascinations; the adoption
not new when he claims that the notion of of cheap video formats; ecological
noble art has been, since Baudelaire, an explorations; and, quite prominently, feminists
accomplice of the privilege (Adorno, 1970, pp. overarching critique...” (Rosler, 2010).
354-355). And at the same time, in Adorno’s
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 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011 11

This strengthen of control of the cultural through the utilization of those elements
industry would shape the time that followed (Adorno, 1970, p. 336).
Adorno, this is, our current time. For Machado, in the art of the new
It is then interesting to analyze the media what seems to happen is, in most of the
relations of the subsequent new media art and cases, the subtle but undeniable lose of the
cultural industry, as the final stage where this more radical perspective of art nowadays. And
relation is manifested. he adds: today, when one visits any event of
electronic art, digital music or interactive
The Cultural Industry and writing, as well as when one browses any
the New Media Art magazine dedicated to those specialties, it is
not necessary a big effort to confirm that the
Continuing with the exposition of aesthetical discussion was entirely substituted
manifestations after the time of Adorno, the for a technical discussion, and that matters like
Brazilian theoretician Arlindo Machado algorithms, hardware and software, took
reflected about the new media art and its majorly the place of creative ideas, of
relation with the cultural industry. subversion of rules and re-invention of life
Here the analysis is brought to the new media (Machado, 2007, p. 56).
art, considering it a contemporary type of art To conclude about the idea of great
that deals more accurately with the value given to the empirical details in the new
technological stage of the time, helping us to media art, Machado manifests that with the
describe the relation between last boom of electronic technologies, art seems
manifestations within the art field with the reduced -except from, naturally, some few
autonomy of art, this is, with the cultural powerful and disturbing experiences- to certain
industry. professional skills, while at the same time the
What was already distinguished by technical ability took the place of the most
Adorno in relation to the art of his time and the radical attitudes. And he completes that in the
cultural industry does not relieve at the present environment of the relation between art and
time. In words of Arlindo Machado, in the case technology; only few events could overtake the
of the art made with new media technology, inevitable industrial framing, looking to
what promised to be a period of confront the most profound inquiries of our
experimentation and discoveries was soon time (Machado, 2007, p. 56).
revealed as the trivialization of routines For Machado, the description of an
already crystallized in the art history: the artist who, in Adorno’s terms, was taken as a
return to conformism and integration to “vedette” (Adorno, 1968, p. 66), would
dominating values (Machado, 2007, p. 55). nowadays correspond to a generation of
For the new art manifestations the rule uninformed yuppies that today produces
seems to be today marked by a strong multimedia pieces, uses devices of no-linear
standardization, by a general uniformity, as if edition, diagrams its homepages in internet but
what is at stake is a sort of aesthetic of never saw a movie of Vertov, never read
merchandising, in which every piece must Artaud, never heard about Beckett, or touched
show a merely demonstration of the qualities a “bicho” of Lygia Clark (Machado, 2007, p.
of the hardware or the potential of the software 56).
(Machado, 2007, p. 55). As well as Adorno saw a conflict when
Adorno already intuited this he perceived that the technique made possible
perspective in the fetishist character of art, that even the worst movie were presented
which the practice of cultural industry, in a objectively as an art piece (Adorno, 1968, p.
servile way, respects. To be more precise, the 68), for the present time the same
process suffered of what was seen by Adorno consideration is applicable:
as the cultural industry admiring the empirical
details -or technique-, which allies in a big
success with the ideological manipulation
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 12 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011

According to Machado we must define with industry: His context is the one of a person
more severe and rigorous criteria to separate who lived and thought Auschwitz and who
the weed from the wheat in the slippery even lost his friend and intellectual partner
territory of the technological aesthetics, in Walter Benjamin in 1940, who committed
order to differentiate and privilege works that suicide in the border between Spain and
mark our time, works that bring an effective France, trying to escape from the Nazis
contribution and gilder, works that, finally, (Gagnebin, p. 1982).
point to perspectives of invention, freedom and In this personal context of Adorno, it is
knowledge (Machado, 2007, p. 56). intuitively understandable how his search for a
And, as well as Adorno pointed to the place for art turned to be a capital search for
danger of declaring art every manifestation answers to oppose the horror of human cruelty.
done inside the cultural industry, for Machado, Doing so, Adorno insisted in the autonomy of
the challenge of the new media art doesn’t lay art, maintaining it as a manifestation that
in a mere naïve apology of the current emerges pure from any human dimension,
possibilities of creation. New media art, on the apart in its own character and justified by its
contrary, must trace a clear difference between mere existence.
what is an industrial production of pleasant Perhaps trying to find a place where to rest
stimulus for the mass media, and on the other from the horror, Adorno fought for a utopian
side, the search for an ethic and an aesthetic for untouched place called art.
the electronic age (Machado, 2007, p. 17)
More precisely, regarding the difficult REFERENCES
production of autonomous art inside the new
media, it is important to point to the fact that Adorno, T. W. (1968). Résumé über
nowadays manifestations like the net.art or kulturindustrie. In Adorno, T. W. (Ed.), Ohne
web art are cheaply produced and freely leitbild- parva aesthetira (pp. 60–70). Frankfurt
exposed to the public of the wide spectrum of am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag.
the virtuality. Art is being produced like never Adorno, T. W. (1970). Äathetische theorie.
before, and without the intervention not only Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp
of interests of the cultural industry and also of Verlag.
the artistic institution. Adorno, T. W., & Horkheimer, M. (1947). La
This way, the ultimate solution for the industria cultural. Iluminismo como
most radical shapes of art can exist only inside mistificación de las masas. Retrieved June 26,
its non-commercial character, as it was 2011, from
exposed in Martha Rosler’s, as well as in http://www.cholonautas.edu.pe/modulo/upload
Adorno’s ideas. /Adorno%20Horkheimer.pdf
And by doing so it questions more effectively Gagnebin, J.M. (1982). Walter Benjamin os
not just the cultural industry but in a broader Cacos da História. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Editora
extension, the whole society, being this the Brasiliense s.a. (Translation German to
role that art is called to play. Portuguese Sônia Salzstein our translation to
English)
CONCLUSION Machado, A. (2007). Arte e mídia. Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil: Jorge Zahar Editor.
The question “How can there be poetry after Rosler, M. (2010). Take the money and run?
Auschwitz, or, indeed, pace Adorno, after Can political and socio-critical art ‘survive’? e-
television?” (Rosler, 2010) is explained by the Flux Journal, 12. Retrieved June 26, 2011,
similarity that Adorno found between the from http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/107
hitlerian ideals and the television (Adorno,
1947, pp. 16-17), as well as with the art
emerged within the cultural industry.
It will not be enough to keep mentioning the
importance of the context in which Adorno
produced his critiques to art of the cultural
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 International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, 1(2), 1-13, July-December 2011 13

ENDNOTES
assumedly, it was enoughly revisited
1 Electromechanical broadcasts began in until the last ideas of the author.
Germany in 1929, but were without
sound until 1934, according to 3 As an isolated aspect, Adorno
Wikipedia. mentions in 1947 the political
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of implication of an art being
_television produced inside a system that supports
2 I will deepen in the last ideas reflected the investments in technical effects,
by Adorno since 1962 that were but which, at the same, doesn’t find the
published in the text “Résumé über resources for the abolishment of
Kulturindustrie”, 1968, and I will hunger (Adorno, 1947, p. 11).
disregard the first manuscript because
___________________________________________________________________________

Claudia Sandoval Romero is a Colombian artist and theoretician currently installed in

Vienna, Austria. She is a social communicator and journalist of the Valle University,
Colombia, and a master in multimedia arts for the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is also
a candidate for the title of Doctor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna with a
dissertation about Benjamin and the Aura in the new media art, and a candidate to the title of
Master in Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Claudia Sandoval Romero
has published her inquiries about art in the current time, as well as about photography, in
both academic and cultural magazines in Colombia, Spain, Mexico, England, Germany, the
USA and Brazil. As an artist, she works with photography and web art and has participated
in exhibitions in Germany, Brazil, Colombia and Serbia.

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