Meaning Benjamin's Surgery

In tying Benjamins’ views of reproductions with Bolten and Grusin’s hypermediacy, the metaphor of a magician and a surgeon by Benjamin (1936) is a great example to describe how audiences interact with the artwork, where the traditional museum is the magician and the virtual museum is the surgeon. “The magician heals a sick person by the laying on of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient’s body. The magician maintains the natural distance between the patient and himself….he greatly increases [this distance] by virtue of his authority. The surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the patient’s body” (Benjamin, 1936: page number). Where the audience can enlarge