Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

In class yesterday we talked about looking at art, and ideas about art. One person told a story of a trip to a museum in England with her art teacher. He apparently declared that anything that he could have made at home was not art, and proceeded to conduct a tour in which he pointed at things and said, more or less "That's art. That's not art." (or, "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like").

In our conversation, some important ideas emerged that took us back to an essay written by Walter Benjamin in 1935, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (or as it could also be translated, " in the age of its technological reproducibility"). His ideas continue to influence our thinking today about art in relation to the technologies of reproducing the image: film, photography, printing, and all the new electronic means of reproducingn and transmitting images, sound, etc.
The text of the essay can be found in many sites on-line. Here is one, which includes a brief "cliff notes" summary before the link to the essay.
Here is the another, with key concepts highlighted and illustrated by flash movies.
Michael Taussig's new book is called Walter Benjamin;s Grave, and here is an excerpt.
What would Benjamin, the author of "Unpacking my Library" have thought about blogging?