Racial Aura: Walter Benjamin and the Work of Art in a Biotechnological Age

In recent years humanists, scientists, and the press have argued that race is no longer a meaningful concept. Alongside evidence that there is no gene for race, we hear the mantra that genomics leads us "beyond race." Indeed assertion of the non-existence of race comprises what may be dubbed the "post-racial" consensus. And yet, when people purchase genetic materials for reproductive use (artificial insemination, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization), participate in recreational genealogy, or practice race-based medicine, they routinely proceed as if genetic race is of paramount import. The concept of "racial aura" describes the paradoxical status of race in contemporary culture. It is also a concept, built on ideas formulated by Walter Benjamin during the rise of Nazi eugenics, which powerfully describes contemporary visual art. Such art simultaneously meditates on the purported "end of race" and on race's persistent reanimation in everyday life. In this way such art teaches viewers about the vexed concept of race in our biotechnological age.