Siegfried Kracauer's "The Mass Ornament," Explained

This video provides an introduction to Siegfried Kracauer's essay "The Mass Ornament," which is published as a chapter in the collection of his Weimar-era writings entitled The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays.

The video begins with a brief introduction to the film theory and cultural theory of Siegfried Kracauer and then proceeds to offer a guided reading of the first two sections of the essay "The Mass Ornament." Topics discussed include the Frankfurt School, The Tiller Girls and Busby Berkeley musical numbers, the "distraction factory" as a concept, Taylorism, "instrumental rationality," and the analogy between mass ornaments and the capitalist production process.