"Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway."
Here, toward the beginning of the essay, Benjamin remarks that reproductions of art are significant because, unlike original pieces, can travel and be experienced in a number of different ways. This mobility divorces these reproductions from a specific time and place, thereby divorcing art from its "aura."
"The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception."
Here, Benjamin explains that what is known as "reality" is actually a relative and ever-changing set of perceptions and experiences. The public, he argues, constructs a concept of reality at the same time that reality constructs a particular kind of public interest.
"The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition."
In this concise assertion, Benjamin begins his argument about how contemporary art has lost the concept of "aura," or uniqueness. Because art is no longer created for ritual and tradition, he says, it loses its unique qualities that render it so valuable.
"But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice—politics."
This is Benjamin's early caution to his readers that the phenomenon he describes—the loss of the artistic "aura"—predicts a new function for art in which politics itself become aesthetic. Benjamin argues that Fascism will appropriate the public perception of art (and its technological reproductions) for its own politically nefarious ends.
"Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art."
Benjamin here notes that mechanical reproduction of art actually influences the way the public comes to consume, appreciate, and value art around them. This is one of Benjamin's most fundamental assertions: that reproducibility of art comes to alter the very nature of art altogther.
"The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one."
Here, Benjamin qualifies his earlier argument about film audiences being thrust into the role of critics and experts due to their connection with the camera rather than an individual actor. Benjamin argues that despite this connection, films are still produced to be consumed in an absent-minded manner (he cites the swiftly-changing scenes as evidence that spectators are not able to contemplate what they are watching in real time). Thus, he notes a paradox inherent in film audiences who are simultaneously critical and distracted.
