Gesamtkunstwerk and Multimedia – between the Auratic and the Technical

The idea of the text is to question the similarities and differences between the concepts of gesamtkunstwerk and multimedia. These are terms that presuppose the search for a new form of unification of artistic forms, at different times and in different ways. The key thinker (and artist) of gesamtkuntwerk or that orientation is the composer Richard Wagner. The theoretician who was at the crossroads of the worlds of traditional art and the contemporary technical sphere was Walter Benjamin. He begins a new line of writing about art, which is supported by theorists such as Marshall MacLuhan, Vilem Flusser, Friedrich Kittler, Jean Baudrillard, Dona Harway, Lev Manovich and Maurizio Lazarato. The text will present the idea of gesamtkunstwerk and compare it with some of the views of theorists who accepted or rejected this idea.