Between the Flâneur and the Badaud: Benjamin and the Modern Mass Perceptual Experience

10.30095/SYJH.200712.0005

Yin-I Chen

班雅明 ； 現代大眾視覺 ； 心神渙散 ； Benjamin ； modern mass visuality ； distraction

中山人文學報

24期（2007 / 12 / 01）

87 - 107

繁體中文

機械文明加速滲透城市生活的個個面向，市景和人潮快速變換、紛至沓來，不斷推陳出新的商品令人眼花撩亂、映接不暇，這些現象在十九世紀末期的大都市里日益顯著，視覺的重要性達到前所未有的境界，一種嶄新的現代視覺經歷也應運而生。這種視覺經歷具有一種群體的本質，訴求於城市大眾，也將這些人群永不停止地暴露在不斷變化、由機械制造出來的視覺景觀的刺激之中，這種視覺已似乎區別於傳統上強調視覺為「心靈的眼睛」的理解，關注的焦點反而是在感官和觸覺層面的眼睛，不斷追尋、瀏覽、跳躍於新的刺激和撞擊而不是專注、連結頭腦的凝視。本文意圖探討這種新視覺的本質，首先檢視一系列的班雅明式的視覺模型，例如城市遊人、觸覺／視覺並用的收藏家拾破爛人，最後指出，班雅明對建築接受過程中的心神渙散的討論，其實提供了理解現代大眾視覺經歷的更好模式，這種切入角度既點出現代大眾視覺極易被外在加劇刺激所掌控的本質，但也同時承認其涵蓋更廣、而像更寬的特性，不無可能提供給觀看者不失正面的挪用。

The accelerated technologization of life and things, the ceaseless chain of rapidly succeeding urban scene and crowds, the ever new commodities and their programmed obsolescence are all trends increasingly visible in the last years of the l9th century and contributable to the unprecedented prioritizing of the visual focus and to the new, changed nature of the modem visual experience, Such a perceptual experience is importantly collective in nature as it addresses a massified urban public and exposes the urban masses to infinitely changing, desire-stimulating, machine-aided visual spectacles. It is also seemingly unconcerned with the traditional understanding of vision as the ”mind's eye”(76), bat rather with the sensual and tactile eye that seeks ever new stimulations amid shucks rather than profound mental contemplation, This paper examines the nature of this new mans visuality through a commentary on a number of Benjaminian models including the/laneur and the tactilely visual collector/rag-picker, and finally argues that Benjamin's discussions on distraction during the reception of architecture offer a mare nuanced model, so that the modem mass perceptual experience is seen both for its susceptibility to increased external manipulation, and also for its enlarged scopes which may give rise to not exclusively negative appropriations.

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