The Original Object of Film or Owning the Rights to an Experience is Whack

Yes, yes, I've been a bad blogger (lashes self...or whatever...). Mostly I have just been so busy, running myself ragged between day jobs, volunteering, and just trying to get my brain full of as many ideas as possible! During these pursuits I definitely have had some weird revelations about my understanding of film. One idea that I can't seem to pacify is the question of the original object as it applies to film. I guess I am so preoccupied by this since for a time my life revolved around the "value" of film as an art object- editions being exclusively sold to individual collectors and institutions. What made the film I worked so closely on art? Why does one copy of the film cost thousands of dollars in a form that is so easily reproducible? Often I would defer to the craft aspect, that the time, heart, spirit & construction were things that elevated the experience to another level but the intangibility, the difficulty in assigning value- both monetarily and culturally- is impossible to determine....and the more I try to think of what Walter Benjamin calls "the aura" (the inexplicable thing that sets an art object apart from other mere existing things which often leads to the materialization of a thing) the term gets hazier and hazier as it applies to film. So instead of boring you with a lengthy post, especially since time is a rare thing for me nowadays I will leave you with an outline I wrote while eating a (sketchy) burger at a place I once got food poisoning from (but ate at again today out of pure hunger caused by extreme overexertion and exhaustion). While at this place I also saw a man with a robot box for a voice.

Film/video has become an art object.
 I. Soooo....what is the object?
    A.The film print is just a vehicle for the art/meaning/beauty.
    B. It takes an exterior force to activate the film.
           1. It takes a human and their senses for film to exist.
           2. The act of watching is the art object.
               1b. Limiting the viewing experience & accessibility makes it valuable? (LAME!)
 II. What imbues film art with an aura?
     A. The act of watching vs. the act of creating.
 III. The creation of film is a manipulation of reality: is reality the original object of film?

The manipulation of the real world is the base of film- even CGI is an extension of a real world, scientific endeavor touched by the human senses. Reality is the medium through which film is made, film isn't a medium at all...it is just the vehicle a version of a reality is documented on. The aura of film is between the viewer and the projector, between the collective unconscious brains and hearts of an audience. The aura is the human experience, the art object the space between the person and the projector. New Cinema is bridging this gap and bringing us closer to the unreality and reality that film as art, and just film for that matter, can produce. All film is art and every moment of one's life is the object that film springs forth from. Rebuttle? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?  Love, Donna K. xoxo