Reconsidering Authenticity
What do we consider authentic today… and why? Last week at the DCDC 2019 conference I found myself thinking about this question. Authenticity is an idea which comes up time and again in my research on blockchain. But today, I want to consider authenticity from a broader spectrum of digital technologies so as to explore whether we perhaps care too much about the ‘authentic’ in society today.
Technologies and authenticity are not new topics, Walter Benjamin (1999), for instance, discusses in depth this idea in relation to an artwork’s aura (the sense of awe we experience when seeing art), he argues that the mechanical reproduction impacts the aura of the original. Similarly, Jean Baudrillard (1983) discusses authenticity in relation to the simulacra. Here, the reproduction is sold as if it is the real, becoming a way of replacement. But should we see experiences which are replicated through digital technology as a replacement? Or is this a way of enhancing what we already know, or even entice us into seeing what the real is all about? In this case, as Carl Hogsden and Emma Poulter (2012) highlight in their research on digital repatriation, the ‘real other’ takes on a different role and it becomes something else in its own right. Therefore, digital technologies provide us with a way of expanding the potential of the original, and the following two examples presented at the conference highlights just this.
Mail Rail for All
If you have ever been to the Postal Museum in London, you’ll know they have a ride which takes you underground round the old Mail Rail which was used to transport letters across the city of London (it was closed down in 2003). However, the tunnels are small, the train is tiny, and so the ride is inaccessible for those who struggle in small spaces or who cannot transfer themselves into the carriage of the train. To address this issue, the museum decided to recreate the experience using virtual reality (VR) which was designed with three different groups of participants with varying disabilities so that the end-product catered for everyone. In doing so, this project was not simply a way of reproducing the experience but creates a whole new experience of the Mail Rail which incorporates visual context and the sense of being ‘like a letter’.
Johanna Green is a book history and digital humanities lecturer at the University of Glasgow who started up an Instagram account to promote the university’s book collection. As she noted in her presentation, manuscripts and books can be hard to capture digitally as there are so many other senses being engaged with when you look at these old books. So, while digital reproductions do provide access to these collections, students lack the experience of seeing these books in context. Instagram is a popular social media platform which provides serendipitous exploration as you scroll through images and videos posted by users. Therefore, Green found this to be a useful platform to engage her students in the collections through videos and close-ups which can capture the turn of pages, size of the books, and the colours and doodles often found in these manuscripts. In doing so, she has created a new form of experience of these books, not one which replaces going to the reading room, but informs viewers and gives them a new way of seeing these rare books.
(check out her Instagram account here: https://www.instagram.com/uofgcodicologist/ )
These two examples provide ways of creating an ‘authentic’ experience without having to see the original experience or artefact. Here, the authenticity has been transferred to the new way of viewing without interrupting the authenticity of the original. Therefore, Adam Lowe and Bruno Latour (2011) have argued that aura is a migratable concept and something which we can experience through seeing a reproduction.
If we take this as a premise, this leads us to question of why do we prioritise the original’s authenticity over the reproduced experience? And if reproduced experiences provide wider access, should we begin to reconsider our definition of authenticity in relation to these two different experiences? In this case, the reproduced experience provides a new form of authenticity and one which expands our senses and perceptions of the original. Therefore, through its migratable aura, the reproduction can work alongside the original to co-create a new extended experience for the viewer, and we can see this in both of these examples noted before. The Mail Rail VR extends the experience of the original ride so that it is more accessible whilst also providing more context. Likewise, the use of Instagram provides richer detail and more access to these rare books in the collections. This offers students an opportunity to see inside the reading room before they have even arrived at the university.
Therefore, digital technologies are challenging this concept of authenticity, but not necessarily in a negative way. Instead, digital technologies are offering us an opportunity to extend the experience and create new and diverse ways of seeing the original.
References:
Baudrillard, J. (1983) Simulations. Translated by P. Foss, P. Patton, and P. Beitchman. United States: Semiotext[e].
Benjamin, W. (1999) Illuminations: Walter Benjamin. 2nd Edn. Edited by H. Arendt. Translated by H. Zorn. London: Random House.
Green, J. ‘Touching the past through digital skin: communicating the materiality of written heritage via social media’, DCDC Conference, Birmingham, 12–14th November 2019
Hogsden, C. and Poulter, E. K. (2012) ‘The Real Other? Museum objects in digital contact networks’, Journal of Material Culture, 17(3), pp. 265–286. doi: 10.1177/1359183512453809.
Latour, B. and Lowe, A. (2011) ‘“The Migration of the Aura, or How to Explore the Original through Its Facsimiles”’, in Bartscherer, T. and Coover, R. (eds) Switching Codes. Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts,. Chicago, UNITED STATES: University of Chicago Press, pp. 275–297. Available at: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/108-ADAM-FACSIMILES-GB.pdf.
Smith, H. ‘Accessibility and immersive experience? Building equitable experiences with disabled communities’, DCDC Conference, Birmingham, 12–14th November 2019.
