Scenic effects (Y1,3)

French fairy plays again national in character, these are dramas as in Y1,2, mechanical scenic effects, phantasmagoria, drawing on myth, "in vogue" and hence part of fashion. They are situated in historical time, developmental, an aspect about them that is reviewing time past, citational in that sense. There is an aspect of these dramas that is "tailored," like an article of clothing. Sense of technology following the dictates of fashion, sense of photography being part and parcel of the revue, an illusionistic performance, a mechanically induced drama. 

How do we make sense of the passage as a citation? Benjamin is documenting a point in the evolution of theatrical spectacle, placing photography within that lineage, placing technology itself in a broader context side by side with nationalism, the Second Empire, bourgeios entertainment, the progress of capital. He does this citationally almost as if saying "as if we could be outside of this movement." 

Photography's scenic effects. Again though the status of the passage as text: it is identical to one of the plays, to language reaching its dramatic moment of exposure, technologically inflected. It speaks of being "retrospective" at the same time as it is retrospective. It tells its own history, but at a remove, which is its own drama, the distancing that brings one closer, that indirection. The material nature of reality, materially presented, like the excess of informational content, leads to the explosive force of liberation. Text only ever seeks that liberation. We need to let the insights already contained in the text come to the fore. There is an aspect to the world that already contains what we are attempting to say.