NODEM 2014 Proceedings

Authenticity and Authorship: The Chocolate Kitchens at Hampton Court Palace
“There is a lot of effort put into using authentic techniques which is really nice and makes me feel more interested in it,
but none of that was in the information I saw.” Hampton Court visitor, (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2014)
Balancing the needs of these different audiences is impossible using traditional interpretative media and
would create a confusing multiplicity of storylines in what is a very small space. It is here that 21 st century
technology comes into its own. While the re-creation story is not the primary message in the room, by using
digital media, we can create a multi-layered experience that allows those who are interested to find out more
about the re-creation process, or those who are sceptical to satisfy themselves as to our methods, but with no
intervention in the Chocolate Room itself which might break the spell for those visitors who just wish to be
transported back in time. We documented the process of re-creation on film: showing the craftsmen at work,
interviewing them about the traditional materials and techniques, filming the curators searching through the
archaeology collection for 18 th century chocolate cup fragments and interviewing the project team about their
research, methodology and vision for the Chocolate Room. The resulting film is available on our website, social
media and an edited version will shortly be available on our multimedia guide.
Conclusion
Jean Paul Sartre described the opposite of authenticity as “bad faith” (Sartre, 1943). He argued that an authentic
experience cannot be achieved whilst there is any sense of being duplicitous or trying to hide one’s true nature.
Applied to this heritage context, digital technology, our online presence, has enabled us to reveal to visitors
the true nature of the Chocolate Room as a re-created space. Therefore we restore, re-create and present the
Chocolate Room in “good faith” to our visitors to provide an authentic experience in the truest sense. The reservations
of the more sceptical visitors before they had been told about the re-creation process, “The Chocolate
Room, it was awfully newly created, wasn’t it?” were transformed into much more positive responses, “‘I think
what they’ve done is brilliant if they’ve tried to re-create everything in the actual way that it would’ve been
done” (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2014). So the re-creation of the Chocolate Room becomes an “authentic”
18 th century experience for those visitors who do not wish to lift the veil but one that is honestly and explicitly
authored in the 21 st century.
Figure 13. Still from The Making of The Chocolate Kitchen film, https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=2QslIjfi_-I
NODEM 2014 Conference & Expo
40