Cultural notions of authorship have changed with the advance in digital technologies. Before, stories and songs were free for the public through oral communities. The idea for an author’s work be protected by copyright is fairly recent. As technology advances ownership of original works becomes threatened. With each new technology it becomes harder for authors to control the copying and reselling of their work because copying is easier to do. There are many different ways to copy something nowadays – such as the photocopier, video, printer, and many others.

Walter Benjamin’s concept of “aura” directly relates to “remediation.” The reason for this is, as original artwork is “remediated” into other art, it loses its “aura.” The “aura” of an artwork is, the atmosphere it generates that surrounds the viewer. This personal interaction between the view and artwork can only be truly felt in person with the original artwork. In our digital age that copies and posts multiple times we think we have seen, for example, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We have seen photographs of it so many times, but we really have not truly gotten the “aura” of it until we view the original.

Patricia Piccinini’s artwork is interesting in the way that it combines artificial within the natural. In Protein Lattice Red, the mouse sitting on the woman’s shoulder has an ear on its back. It surprises the viewer in my opinion with each of her artworks because you have to find he artificial within this at first all natural looking artwork.