Walteris Benjaminas, kaip visi žino, įrodinėjo, kad XX a. plačioji visuomenė neišvengiamai koreliuos su neseniai politizuotu menu. Tačiau nuo tada, kai buvo parašytas Benjamino straipsnis, pasaulis smarkiai pakito, kaip mažiau nei po dešimtmečio jau įvertino Theodoras Adorno ir Maxas Horkheimeris. Šiame straipsnyje siekiama išnagrinėti, kaip Frankfurto mokyklos estetika, nors dažnai tebepasitelkiama, neteko dalies tiesioginio aktualumo. Septintojo dešimtmečio isteblišmentui priešiškas tarpsnis, pastiprintas ryškaus ironijos pomėgio, aurą ir eksponavimą pavertė nemadingomis vertybėmis, tačiau, kita vertus, kainų kilimas meno rinkoje ir skaitmeninimas parodė, kad Frank furto mokyklos argumentai tampa vis aktualesni. Remiantis Golsdworthy ir Kentridge‘o pavyzdžiais, straipsnyje įrodinėjama, kad sąmoningas menininkų abiejų terpių (auros ir eksponavimo) kontrolės ir recepcijos silpninimas išstumia atgyvenusias, Benjamino patvirtintas religines reakcijas, vietoj jų reikalaujant didesnių intelektinių pastan gų iš žiūrovų, kurių kaip plačiosios publikos tapatybė neseniai tapo komplikuota.

Repentance and overcoming, or becoming an available, usable memory and an activity of resistance: this, in an environment of critical communicative practices, is what the experience of the Gulag and later, nomenklatura embodiments of the Soviet system might have become in our day. The problem of the functions of various types of repentance is discussed in the article, following the ideas of Arendt, Foucault, Habermas, and Podoroga and interpreting repentance as a technology of power. Two types of repentance are considered: Christian and Dissident. The first is based on classical rituals, repetition, and a regime of confession, repentance, redemption, and the maintenance of a new status. Institutionalization and control of confessions as well as internalization of technologies and transcending of authority created a technology of internal self-control. The Christian technologies of confession and repentance were developed in the contemporary system of prisons and collective power (the phenomenon of collective trials in Soviet Union). The main purpose of Christian, prison and collective repentances is full renunciation of previous beliefs and establishment of a new trust. Religious and consequently ideological confessions and repentances are based on new beliefs and full destruction and deformation of the previous ones. The dissident movement developed another type of a repentance, which is based on the dialectical idea of overcoming (Aufheben) and was applied to the case of the Gulag. The procedure of overcoming presupposes understanding of moral or psychic problems in the case of terror and pressure, development of critical distance, grasping of transformations of humanity, subjection of negative experience, and transforming it into a disposition.[...]