06-14-2012, 01:06 AM
Matt, I think your arguments are in themselves conclusive. However, I think behind all this is a serious other problem. Starting to think from the end: What do people who disguise themselves as Romans want?
Do you want to spend your time
1. making a historical LARP with friends, without audience?
2. educating people?
3. making a historical LARP with audience?
4. making a mix of the above?
or
Do you want to attend
1. Museum events?
2. Historical festivals?
3. historical LARP-like events?
Once you now what you want to do, you will quickly know, what kind of "authenticity-level" you need.
If you are at museum events, which are funded by tax money, you have an obligation to have a super-authentic kit, and you must have a profound knowledge about the objects you wear and show, PLUS a profound knowledge about the context of these objects. You are being payed to educate. You must fulfill the museum standards and academic standards.
If you go to historical festivals, you should have a kit that meets a certain standard. The standard is usually defined by your group and the event organizers. It can be higher, but not lower.
If you go somewhere where there is no audience, you could theoretically also wear a pink bunny costume. It´s you private thing.
Audience: It depends also on the kind of event you attend. At a museum or other educational facility, the audience´s expectation towards authenticity is extremely high. There have been studies in Germany which investigated this (compare: H.-J. Pandel, Authentizität, in: U. Mayer et al. (Hg.), Wörterbuch Geschichtsdidaktik, Schwalbach/Ts(2006), p. 25-26., see also »Authenticity and Museums«. In: Museum Audience Insight: Audience Research, Trends, Observations from Reach Advisors and Friends, vom 7. April 2008 ( http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_...ty-an.html ))
This is basically also the case on other, "normal" audience, but there it depends on what target audience the festival / event has. But the visitors ALWAYS EXPECT everything to be 100% correct. So, if asked, people disguised as Romans should be able to tell the audience what is not correct on their impression. This may become problematic, if there is no communication between audience and the people disguised as Romans.
Terms:
1. Reenactment: A difficult one. We should´t use it for what most of us do, nor should we call ourselves "reenactors". This is why:
the term is academic, and describes an academic method, in which people re-play, or re-stage a specific historic situation under controlled condition, with the goal to investigate how things may have developed/happened, all this specifically based on sources, and the whole thing needs to be documented.
(R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford 1961, p. 39, 283-302. )
So the term is as difficult as "Experimental Archaeology".
2. "Living History". Well, a misleading term. But O.K.
3."Historical theater" would make sense. "Historic actor". We now call our gladiator show in fact "Gladiatorentheater", for that´s what it is, even if the fights are not choreographed.
So: Find out what you actually do or want to do. Then find a term for it. Thus different terms could describe what people do and prevent misunderstandings between these groups. I think this forum would be a very good place to have such a discussion, and to find consensus. A while ago I started a poll about this, but unfortunately only few people voted. We should see such a discussion as a great chance to improve what we do, and to improve our cooperation, since cooperation and integration are, if we could learn something from history, then it would be this, always making things better than separation does.
Do you want to spend your time
1. making a historical LARP with friends, without audience?
2. educating people?
3. making a historical LARP with audience?
4. making a mix of the above?
or
Do you want to attend
1. Museum events?
2. Historical festivals?
3. historical LARP-like events?
Once you now what you want to do, you will quickly know, what kind of "authenticity-level" you need.
If you are at museum events, which are funded by tax money, you have an obligation to have a super-authentic kit, and you must have a profound knowledge about the objects you wear and show, PLUS a profound knowledge about the context of these objects. You are being payed to educate. You must fulfill the museum standards and academic standards.
If you go to historical festivals, you should have a kit that meets a certain standard. The standard is usually defined by your group and the event organizers. It can be higher, but not lower.
If you go somewhere where there is no audience, you could theoretically also wear a pink bunny costume. It´s you private thing.
Audience: It depends also on the kind of event you attend. At a museum or other educational facility, the audience´s expectation towards authenticity is extremely high. There have been studies in Germany which investigated this (compare: H.-J. Pandel, Authentizität, in: U. Mayer et al. (Hg.), Wörterbuch Geschichtsdidaktik, Schwalbach/Ts(2006), p. 25-26., see also »Authenticity and Museums«. In: Museum Audience Insight: Audience Research, Trends, Observations from Reach Advisors and Friends, vom 7. April 2008 ( http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_...ty-an.html ))
This is basically also the case on other, "normal" audience, but there it depends on what target audience the festival / event has. But the visitors ALWAYS EXPECT everything to be 100% correct. So, if asked, people disguised as Romans should be able to tell the audience what is not correct on their impression. This may become problematic, if there is no communication between audience and the people disguised as Romans.
Terms:
1. Reenactment: A difficult one. We should´t use it for what most of us do, nor should we call ourselves "reenactors". This is why:
the term is academic, and describes an academic method, in which people re-play, or re-stage a specific historic situation under controlled condition, with the goal to investigate how things may have developed/happened, all this specifically based on sources, and the whole thing needs to be documented.
(R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford 1961, p. 39, 283-302. )
So the term is as difficult as "Experimental Archaeology".
2. "Living History". Well, a misleading term. But O.K.
3."Historical theater" would make sense. "Historic actor". We now call our gladiator show in fact "Gladiatorentheater", for that´s what it is, even if the fights are not choreographed.
So: Find out what you actually do or want to do. Then find a term for it. Thus different terms could describe what people do and prevent misunderstandings between these groups. I think this forum would be a very good place to have such a discussion, and to find consensus. A while ago I started a poll about this, but unfortunately only few people voted. We should see such a discussion as a great chance to improve what we do, and to improve our cooperation, since cooperation and integration are, if we could learn something from history, then it would be this, always making things better than separation does.
Christian K.
No reconstruendum => No reconstruction.
Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
No reconstruendum => No reconstruction.
Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
