In "Contemplative Immersion: Benjamin, Adorno & Media Art Criticism" in Transformations Daniel Palmer argues that Walter Benjamin interpreted Dada as having been instrumental in challenging art’s autonomy, arts claims to eternal value and to the mode of contemplative immersion in which the viewing subject would often lose control of their senses and their sense of self. With Dada the spectator’s viewing relation had been politicised.

If the idea that the meaning of a work derives more from an audience’s interpretation of it rather than simply the author’s intent, then when art is shown at exhibitions in the art institution today, the conditions of its reception remain largely contemplative and solitary.In contrast Adorno argues that art is the realm of individual freedom. His aesthetic theory is traditional, in that he proposes that the significance of an artwork inheres in it, is actually present or abiding in, and the role of the viewer is to actively discover it.