The Inauthentic Creating the Impression of Authenticity – Williamsburg Williamsburg, situated in Virginia, U.S.A, represents, in short, a 301-acre open-air museum, housing over one hundred restored and reproduced 18th century buildings.36 This vast reconstruction of an important colonial town already elicits a significant appeal within modern heritage trends. However, upon arrival, the visitor is thrown amidst the action succumbing to a participating role. The museumesque presentation of objects is enveloped by a living entity. Actors, stories, and props culminate to create a three-dimensional atmosphere, engulfing its audience’s senses. ‘Imaginary social relationships are subjectively compelling. Experiences in fantasies, memories, dreams, and media involvements are often more engrossing than actual social encounters.’37 Within this interactive setting both worlds are merged openly and visually with the visitor. Free dialogues can be created, opinions voiced, all leading to a sense of choice. The play can unfold how the user wants it to, with engagement at all levels, allowing the visitor to choose the pace at which to explore.
The Inauthentic Leading to Authenticity – Disneyland Disneyland is the tangible embodiment of an imagined entity, born from the success of well-loved fictional characters and narratives. Although it is an entirely authentic twentiethcentury theme park, inauthenticity is rife from within, from falsified organic scenarios, forced perspectives, and its centerpiece, a 77ft cement and fiberglass castle modeled upon that of Sleeping Beauty. However, all of this is accepted and enjoyed, and it is increasingly becoming part of the cultural heritage of all who have or aspire to visit. With its numerous narratives’ existence spanning decades, the characters and themes not only belong to the children that still watch the shows, but also to a fantastic past that adults can grasp with their imaginations.38 Childhood memories from all ages can be rekindled, reigniting long forgotten fantasies of magic and princesses. With the site’s expression of its life undoubtedly emotively linked alongside that of its visitors, the reliving of a relationship produced between a story and an internal fantasy is enjoyed within a real but still fantastical form. From the models shown, along with the identified practical implementation of constructed narratives, the widening influences affecting such a process can be seen to be heavily reliant upon its structural composition from the immediate outset. The fickle nature of success 36 Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, ‘That the Future May Learn from the Past’, http://www.history.org/foundation/mission.cfm [accessed 28th December 2012]. 37 Caughey, Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach, p. 242. 38 Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, (London: Harcourt, 1986), p. 43. A PLACE FOR A MEETING: THE REAL AND PERCIEVED Sam Matthams