“In all the arts there is
a physical component which can no longer be considered
or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain
unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For
the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor
time has been what it was from time immemorial.
We must expect great innovations to transform the
entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting
artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing
about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces
sur L’Art, Le Conquete de l’ubiquite,
1931.
Quoted by Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in
the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936.