Re-creation

A re-creation is a reenactment, typically used to solve a crime or determine a mode of failure or cause of death. This may either be an actual reenactment, or a virtual reality one done on a computer. The re-creation helps to show things to investigators that might not otherwise be obvious.

In a shooting, the floorplan of the room, the reported positions of the assailant and victim, the angle at which the bullets entered and exited the victims and/or furniture and walls are all taken into account.

In disasters such as building collapses and aircraft crashes, engineering consultants are brought in as well.

Another established (though relatively rare) use of the term is as a variant of the word reenactment. However, the re-enactment suggests the accurate reconstrucstion of events in a historical event, which are "re-enacted" for an audience (which possibly may be no more than the re-enactors themselves. "Re-creation" starts from the premise that we cannot be as knowledgable about the past as to be able to recontruct a re-enactment, we must be content with setting an envelope for the behaviour of the enactors, termed "re-creators". The re-creators are obliged to create as far as they can the illusion of the past in the present, thus presenting themselves as say washerwoman, landlord or king, as one would expect such people to have behaved, in the first person. This subtle repositioning of the actor (or re-enactor, as used as Kentwell Hall in their annual "re-creations" creates a mis-en-scene in which historic events seamlessly blend into the present, and the audience loses its "otherness" timewise.