AI copies the style, not the work
Older copying duplicated the work. AI copies the style, not the work — so what fades is the aura of the making, the sense that a way of seeing belonged to one person.
To see it, start with an old idea from Walter Benjamin.
There is a deeper change worth naming. To see it, start with an old idea from Walter Benjamin.
Benjamin said an original artwork has an "aura." A sense of unique presence, tied to its place, its time, and the tradition it came from. When you make mechanical copies — a photo, a print — that aura fades. A poster of a Vermeer in a student flat is not a Vermeer. He was uneasy about the loss, but he also saw the gain: copies brought art to people who could never reach the original.
AI changes the level at which this happens. Older copying duplicated the work: the specific painting, the specific print. AI copies the style, not the work.
When a model absorbs a designer's visual language and makes competent variations, it is not duplicating one poster. It is reproducing the grammar that made the work recognisable.
The aura of the making — though the loosened vocabulary spreads to people who.
To see it, start with an old idea from Walter Benjamin.
Benjamin said an original artwork has an "aura." A sense of unique presence, tied to its place, its time, and the tradition it came from.
When you make mechanical copies — a photo, a print — that aura fades.
So what fades is not the aura of the object. It is the aura of the making. The sense that a way of seeing belonged to a particular person, in a particular practice.
There is still a gain, as Benjamin would note. A visual language, once loosened from its maker, can be used by people who could never have invented it, in places its originator never imagined. The maker's mark fades, but the vocabulary spreads, and the cycle turns again.
Benjamin said an original artwork has an "aura." A sense of unique presence, tied to its place, its time, and the tradition it came from.
The aura of the making — though the loosened vocabulary spreads to people who could not have invented it.
Older copying duplicated the work. AI copies the style, not the work — so what fades is the aura of the making, the sense that a way of seeing belonged to one person.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “Appropriation is Not New: The Eternal Return of the Vanguard”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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