Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2025

Publication Title

Sophia Lucid

Volume

IV

Issue

I

Pages

28-39

Abstract

This paper explores the iterative evolutions of textual production and their impact on the “aura” of texts, as conceptualized by Walter Benjamin. The study identifies three key phases of textual production: the natural, the mechanized, and the digitized, each progressively displacing the “cult value” of texts. This cult value is lost through increased ease of creation, reproduction, dissemination, and dislocation of creators and audiences in time and space. The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) marks the latest evolution, transforming the “aura” into a memetic “zombie” form—familiar yet opaque, evoking both the sublime and fear. By examining Benjamin’s notion of “aura” at the threshold of mass media technologies, this paper introduces the concepts of “hybrid auras” and “zombie auras,” representing texts co-authored by non-embodied technologies that retain only a semblance of their original aura.

To illustrate this transformation, the paper begins with an analysis of the Epic of Gilgamesh, whose “natural” aura has endured through various textual evolutions. It then conducts a performance-based “aura check” by comparing Shakespeare’s embodied, mechanically reproduced texts with GenAI-generated reproductions. This experiment highlights the distillation of texts and the impact of GenAI mimicry on the aura of mechanically reproduced works. Finally, the paper broadens its scope to contemporary GenAI co-authorship beyond literature, examining how the hybridization of mechanization and digitization creates new forms of textual production. The study argues for the necessity of attuning to these new literary forms to preserve the remaining humanities-based aura in text reproduction, preventing its complete transformation into a “zombie-aura.”

Rights

Included with kind permission from the author.

Original Publication Citation

Nieubuurt, J. (2025). Zombie-auras: GenAI and hybrid text production. Sophia Lucid. IV(I), 28-39. https://www.sophiacollegemumbai.com/img/Sophia%20Lucid%20Volume%204,%20Issue%201-%20Feb%202025.pdf

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