Germano Celant has referred to the desire for the unlimited fabrication and widespread distribution of art objects as a “small utopia,” positing it as “a dream that punctuated the twentieth century across myriad historical and aesthetic contexts and moments.” But as much as reproduction offered a utopian promise, it also figured as a threat due to the possibility that it might liquidate historicity and uniqueness. In response to the anxiety provoked by the onslaught of mechanical copies in the nineteenth century, authenticity emerged as a subjective ideal and as a way of judging the worthiness of objects. This talk will examine this moment of emergence in order to question the continued operation of authenticity today, within a digital culture in which the mass reproduction of images and experiences has reached unprecedented heights. Erika Balsom is a lecturer in Film Studies and Liberal Arts at King's College London. She is the author of Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (Amsterdam University Press, 2013) and was co-editor (with Hila Peleg) of the publication accompanying Berlin Documentary Forum 3 (2014). Her current research concerns distribution models in artists' film and video and examining how reproduction has figured as threat and promise in art and theory. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Screen, Afterall, and Cinema Journal, and she is regular contributor to Artforum. As well as the suggested reading by Lionel Trilling, Erika has supplied a list of the key names she will refer to during the talk which will hopefully be useful for reference during and after, if you miss something. Reading: Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity (1970), p.92-100 & p.122-133