To believe original art is somehow better than its digital-perfect clone requires a shamanistic view of art, or is it Marxian? Either would work and both are about work. When those on the production-line combine their labor with raw material they own some part of the thing created, and focusing intense concentration, chanting and ritual, on a physical object imbues it with an indwelling presence. By either point of view, primitive or progressive, putting effort into manipulating inert material instills a value that remains. Digital reproductions, identical and one dimensional, are facades without backsides, airy spooks with no value as art. It becomes problematic when a new one, or a thousand, pops out with only the momentary pressure of a finger. Negligible effort inserts a fat zero into either equation.
Marx was chiefly concerned with fair compensation for individual effort and many artists would settle for that, but in the older view the original object is sum of the artist’s thought and effort up until that point which will perpetually radiate into any room. The difference between original and reproduction is the difference between having a musician come to dinner with you and your family and then play in your living room, and listening to the digital replay later on the finest system available. The sound is all there, probably better, but it isn’t the same, not even close. Original art is more than the image -- by almost any system of value, even if it’s simple rarity, one-of-a-kind from the hand of an artist has inherent worth no picture of it could ever have.
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