Re-envisioning the Aura — The Manifestation and Application of Mythological Value Forms in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Primordial humans created myths rooted in their reverence for the natural world as divine. In their consciousness, all elements of their surroundings were imbued with a unique “aura” — a halo of authenticity and sacredness. However, with the advent of the technological age of replication, from mechanical to dig-ital reproduction, the “aura” of artworks or myths, as Walter Benjamin theorized, has gradually dissipated. Narratives and artistic works, once confined to the veiled sanctity of ritualistic worship, were liberated from their primordial womb, drawing closer to human existence and mass culture. As myths increasingly permeate everyday life, they have shifted from serving solely ritualistic-magical ends to undergoing continuous value transformation within the cultural industry, traversing from one pole of static tradition to another of dynamic reinvention. How can the “Aura” of Mythology Survive Dissolution in the Ocean of Mass Culture?—Reconstructing a Network of Secular Integration Without Distortion, and Unleashing the Driving Force of Cultural Creativity Through Mythic Narratives The “aura” of mythology, once rooted in sacred authenticity, now faces existen-tial threats as it drowns in the tides of mass culture. The critical challenge lies in capturing its fading traces—like grasping a wisp of smoke—and reweaving them into a dynamic network that both integrates into secular society and resists distortion or overexploitation. Central to this endeavor is harnessing mythology’s inherent storytelling power to activate latent creative energies within the cultural and creative industries.