What exactly is the aura? How does it function in a work of art? We begin our journey Into the Aura with the writing and thinking of Walter Benjamin, who first theorized the aura in a fraught historical moment marked by political extremism, social anxiety, and technological revolution. This episode is presented by Catherine Kim, Kyoung Hoon Kim, and Henry Hong.

Into the Aura: Pop Art

Eighty-five years after Walter Benjamin theorized the aura in the work of art, how do we understand that "strange weave of space and time" in an era of digital connection, when art seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once? Join students at the Rhode Island School of Design as we explore the life and the afterlife of the aura as it resurfaced, transformed, and disappeared during the volatile period after the Second World War, in which a new generation of artists reimagined the possibilities of the avant-garde and its ability to transform society.

Into the Aura is a  podcast created by students in the Spring 2021 art history seminar "Neo-Vanguards," taught by Dr. Sean Nesselrode Moncada at the Rhode Island School of Design.