Esoterics say that if you photograph a person in a certain way, it is possible to capture their aura on film. Colloquially, an aura is a presence, or simply a vibe.
An aura is like punk or porn; you know it when you see it, except you can’t see it because it’s a ghostly shell. Walter Benjamin claimed that the aura of an artwork is all about its inaccessibility, authenticity, and uniqueness. But the real controversy in his essay* is about how, what he calls aura, starts to rot away because of technical reproducibility. That was almost a century ago. This year, Aura was chosen as the youth word of the year (German: Jugendwort des Jahres), an annual publication which reviews trends in German youth language.

Ricardo Meli presents strange, serially produced apparatuses and cables, scattered in the room like they are part of an abandoned experimental lab. This ambiguity creates a new visual and aesthetic reference system through deduction. In doing so, the aura of the artworks is not deconstructed, but rather repeatedly constructed and instrumentalized. The occult algorithm of Meli’s exhibition stays a secret but reveals to us its outcome.

While the exhibition’s story, as it were, allows for headcanon, algorithms prioritize efficiency and predictability, losing the chance for unexpected and unmeasurable experiences. Everything is targeted. The machines are learning and tailor everything to fit algorithmic expectations. Maybe that is what we have to be afraid of.

* Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility.”, 1936

— Tobias Bärtsch