The Imagined Latent Zone: How the Myth of Cultural Authenticity Survived the Covid-19 Lockdowns

Abstract

Computer-mediated interactions dramatically increased in volume, frequency, variety and duration globally, amid the ‘lockdowns’ of the Covid-19 period. This presented an opportunity for us to re-examine the myth of cultural authenticity, with a focus on spatiality and technology. We set out to explore whether this myth could survive in a world where most interactions took place through screens. The myth of ‘authentic culture’ disguises the fact that cultures are continuous embodied, situated, lived processes of hybridization and reinvention. The strength of this myth increases the further away geographically the believer in cultural authenticity is from the place imagined as the source of authenticity. Given that Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) allow informationally rich, frequent and low-cost interactions between cultural others, we might assume that digital mediation would help to weaken the notion of ‘authentic culture’ that simplifies and stereotypes. However, ICTs are themselves virtualization machines that facilitate the creation and circulation of cultural stereotypes and clichés. We approach this dual potential of digital mediation as applied to the myth of authenticity in a post-covid world, drawing on the concepts of re-spatialization and remediation. Re-spatialization allows us to define the illusion of authenticity as the translation of real places into experiential spaces and imagined latent zones. Remediation supports our desire for access to the radical authenticity of the other (cultures) by giving us the illusion that it is possible to bridge the gap between representation and reality, if we add more and more media to the process. The potential of this framework for understanding how the myth of cultural authenticity might play out in the post-Covid world is illustrated with a variety of anecdotes.