Aprender por meio da dispersão: aplicabilidade do diagnóstico de Walter Benjamin sobre a mudança da percepção na modernidade

Abstract

The text addresses issues concerning changes in the perception or mode of reception of human beings, characterized by Zerstreuung (dispersion), as described in the writings of Walter Benjamin, and on the dispersion or distraction of students due to the contemporary way of life, as described in the writings of Paula Sibilia. The emergence and development of mechanical reproduction of works of art, especially cinema, allowed, for the first time in history, art to separate itself from its ritualistic context and become a means of exhibition. In this rupture, in addition to the theme of the "destruction of the aura" of the work of art, which concerns the moment and place – its "here and now" – that characterized the reception mode of contemplation, a mode of reception linked to lived experience (Erlebnis) emerges, finding its roots in modernity, with the rise of large metropolises and industrial work. Large metropolises foster in the individual a weakened form of experience, characterized by constant shocks and stimuli and by isolation. This change occurs solely due to the decline of a type of experience (Erfahrung) based on artisanal production and constituting collective memory. According to our reading hypothesis, the emergence of cinema results from a process of industrialization that transforms the relationship between human beings and art, configuring itself as a space or "school" of aesthetic re-education. Alongside Paula Sibilia, we intend to expand what Benjamin applies to cinema to the reflection on learning and its new devices.