Historical Fidelity Research Articles

Simulacra and historical fidelity in digital recreation of lost cultural heritage: Reconstituting period materialities for the period eye

The advancement of digital technologies in art history has opened avenues for reconstructing lost or damaged cultural heritage, a need highlighted by the deteriorated state of many artworks from the 1785 Salon. Grounded in the concept of the “Period Eye” by art historian Michael Baxandall, which emphasizes understanding artworks within their original historical and cultural contexts, this study proposes a subfield focused on Reconstituting Period Materialities for the Period Eye. This methodology bridges comprehensive historical research with generative visual artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, facilitating the creation and immersive virtual reality viewing of artworks. Beyond mere visual replication, the approach aims to recreate the material and textural realities of the period, thereby enabling contemporary audiences to experience these works as they were originally perceived. The process includes replicating building materials using Quixel Megascans, employing AI for generating images of lost artworks, and utilizing normal maps for simulating painting textures, all contributing to an authentic reconstruction of the Salon’s ambiance and materiality. This approach, met with some skepticism from traditional historians and archeologists, asserts that such digital reconstitution, backed by rigorous empirical research and detailed period-specific datasets, yields reconstructions of greater historical accuracy and contextual richness. This mirrors strides in sound archeology, endorsing a similar empirical approach in visual material recreation. The significance of this study is underscored by its potential to enrich our comprehension of historical artworks through a “Period Eye,” blending historical insights with modern technological innovation for a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and the Aesthetics of Authenticity

Warhorse Studios’ award-winning action role-playing game Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018) has—perhaps somewhat unkindly—been described as a “peasant simulator.” Nonetheless, “simulation” is a good description of the way in which its gameplay is conceived and framed, with a stated focus on historical accuracy and realism. This verisimilitude has been cited as having a noticeable cost in terms of accessibility for new players, with something of a steep learning curve required to master the game, but has also frequently been cited in positive reviews. The level of realism is indeed impressive. It extends not only to the need to eat, drink, and sleep, but also to the need to learn how to read (vernacular and Latin separately) if the player wishes to glean any information from written texts. But a focus on realism always brings with it challenges. The highly effective musical score of this game, written by Jan Valta and Adam Sporka, features an interactive and adaptive score, making use of a new engine developed specifically for the game called the Sequence Music Engine. There is already a neat tension here between the stated aim of historical fidelity and the modern expectation of an adaptive score; no preexistent “authentic” music can be used in this manner. As with all games, and indeed all screen media, composers and studios must work hard to balance authenticity to the medium and the genre with authenticity to the period. We expect fairly ubiquitous non-diegetic music in screen media—and its absence carries very particular semantics—but fifteenth-century Bohemia was conspicuous in its absence of invisible, itinerant symphony orchestras roaming its landscape. This article focuses on the interplay between fantasy and “authenticity,” especially considering the ways in which the composers work creatively to give an immersive and coherent soundworld, within the limits of what I term an “aesthetic of authenticity.” It explores the creative interplay between the “real” historical environment and that which is understood to be real in the popular consciousness, as well as the interconnected web of demands set by the medium, the interactive and narrative genres, and the historical setting.

Environmental sympatry through time: spatio-temporal distribution and conservation status of two sympatric anuran species (Leptodactylidae) in South America

Introduction: Leptodactylus latinasus and Physalaemus cuqui are sympatric anuran species with similar environmental requirements and contrasting reproductive modes. Climatic configuration determines distribution patterns and promotes sympatry of environmental niches, but specificity/selectivity determines the success of reproductive modes. Species distribution models (SDM) are a valuable tool to predict spatio-temporal distributions based on the extrapolation of environmental predictors. Objectives: To determine the spatio-temporal distribution of environmental niches and assess whether the protected areas of the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) allow the conservation of these species in the current scenario and future. Methods: We applied different algorithms to predict the distribution and spatio-temporal overlap of environmental niches of L. latinasus and P. cuqui within South America in the last glacial maximum (LGM), middle-Holocene, current and future scenarios. We assess the conservation status of both species with the WDPA conservation units. Results: All applied algorithms showed high performance for both species (X̅TSS = 0.87, X̅AUC = 0.95). The L. latinasus predictions showed wide environmental niches from LGM to the current scenario (49 % stable niches, 37 % gained niches, and 13 % lost niches), suggesting historical fidelity to stable climatic-environmental regions. In the current-future transition, L. latinasus would increase the number of stable (70 %) and lost (20 %) niches, suggesting fidelity to lowland regions and a possible trend toward microendemism. P. cuqui loses environmental niches from the LGM to the current scenario (25 %) and in the current-future transition (63 %), increasing the environmental sympathy between both species; 31 % spatial overlap in the current scenario and 70 % in the future. Conclusion: Extreme drought events and rainfall variations, derived from climate change, suggest the loss of environmental niches for these species that are not currently threatened but are not adequately protected by conservation units. The loss of environmental niches increases spatial sympatry which represents a new challenge for anurans and the conservation of their populations.

Evolution of the Internal Climate Modes under Future Warming

Abstract Climate modes play an important role in weather and climate variability over multiple spatial and temporal scales. This research assesses Earth system model (ESM) projections of the spatiotemporal characteristics of key internal climate modes (NAM, SAM, PNA, ENSO, PDO, and AMO) under high (SSP585) and low (SSP126) radiative forcing scenarios and contextualizes those projections using historical fidelity. Time series analyses are used to assess trends and mode phase characteristics are summarized for the historical period and for the end of the twenty-first century. Spatial patterns are compared to infer morphological changes. Shifts in the power spectra are used to examine changes in variability at subannual, interannual, and interdecadal scales. Changes in time-lagged correlations are used to capture the evolution of first-order interactions. While differences in historical skill are predominantly ESM dependent, changing mode characteristics in a warmer climate also exhibit variability between individual ensemble realizations. NAM, SAM, and ENSO tend to evolve toward increased prevalence of the positive phase up to 2100 across the multimodel ensemble while the PNA and PDO exhibit little trend but increasing phase intensity. AMO characteristics are shown to depend on the method used to remove the external signal. ESMs that show higher historical fidelity tend to show more modest changes in those modes under global nonstationarity. Changes in mode interactions are found to be highly ESM dependent but exhibit broadly similar behavior to historical relationships. These findings have implications for our understanding of internal variability and make clear that the choice of ESM, and even the ESM realization, matters for applications of climate projections. Significance Statement Internal modes of variability are important to understand due to their impact on local, regional, and global weather and climate patterns. Future climate changes will not only be affected by the variability arising from these modes, but the modes will themselves change in response to the changing climate. Spatial and temporal aspects of the modes are assessed from projections of future climate and related to how well they are captured in the historical climate. This yields some measure of confidence in the changes exhibited by the models. In most cases, when historically skillful models exhibit changes that are different from those produced by less skillful models, they tend to produce more modest changes. These results, as well as the variability between model outcomes, mean decisions on which ESM to use for projections of the future climate matter significantly.

In the Anthropocene: adaptive law, ecological health, and biotechnologies

ABSTRACT Climate change has induced an ecological crisis necessitating reconsideration of how the law should manage human interactions with ecological systems. In most Western legal regimes, conservation policy has principally sought to advance historical or natural preservation or sustained yield objectives, while many laws governing biotechnologies focus on minimising exposure to ‘natural’ systems. Meanwhile, Western public processes are largely built on a legal framework that assumes comprehensive rationality at the front end of decision-making. Lastly, prevailing public conservation governance is fragmented, save the limited attempts to consolidate or coordinate decentralised, independent, and/or overlapping authority. The increasingly convulsive effects of climate change and developments in biotechnology bring to stark relief the limitations of prevailing Western public conservation goals, processes, and institutional design. First, promoting biodiversity may require fundamental changes in management to focus on increasing ecological health and other values than consumption, historical fidelity, and nonintervention. Second, integration of adaptive and inclusive processes is imperative for promoting both effective management strategies and learning in the face of unprecedented change. Third, policymakers must appreciate the tradeoffs of allocating authority across the array of institutional structures, and tailor not only the scale of interventions but also the extent of overlap and coordination of authority.

On the Horns of a Dilemma: Let the Northern White Rhino Vanish or Intervene?

ABSTRACT Two females, Nadine and Fatu, are the sole surviving Northern White Rhinos (NWR). The subspecies is functionally extinct. Hope for NWR now lies in emerging reproductive and genetic technologies, which could potentially produce NWR from induced pluripotent stem cells. What is the rationale for this project? This question raises almost every philosophical issue facing conservation science today. I argue that NWR recovery is hard to justify via many traditional paths (e.g., historical fidelity, ecosystem health, biodiversity), but if we shift focus to white rhinos in general or even mammals then clear benefits emerge.

Multiple meanings of history in restoration

In ecological restoration, the role of historical fidelity in restoration references has long been both a foundational concept and a frequent source of debate. However, this is not the only role that history plays. History in the sense of historical knowledge can inform goal‐setting and provide tools for success. History in the sense of historical events (what has happened in a place) in many ways determines the goals and trajectories of restoration, and to what extent a historical reference is knowable and applicable. Here, we discuss a conceptual framework for how these forms of “history” interact, and particularly the underappreciated ways in which historical events shape the aspirations and limitations of restoration. We propose that considering legacies of historical events in the who, when, and where of restoration will be crucial to informing appropriate restoration goals for the future.

Historical fidelity and future change of Amundsen Sea Low under 1.5 °C–4 °C global warming in CMIP6

The realistic simulation and projection of the Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) are essential for understanding the Antarctic climate and global climate change. Using 14 models that participated in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), this study evaluates the climatological characteristics of ASL with comparison to the ERA5 reanalysis and their CMIP5 versions and assesses the future change of ASL under 1.5 °C–4 °C global warming. The climatological spatial distribution of ASL is captured reasonably but with underestimated intensity by CMIP6 multi-model ensemble (MME). Among the CMIP6 models, EC-Earth3 has most accurate representation of ASL according to the pattern correlation and biases. The seasonal variation of the ASL depth and location are found to be reasonably reproduced by the CMIP6 models. CMIP6 MME has higher skills in simulating the seasonal cycle of absolute depth and zonal migration of the ASL center. The relative central pressure of ASL is underestimated in all seasons and there is a 4-degree northward shift bias of the ASL center in austral winter, which were also evident in the CMIP5. The semiannual cycle of ASL absolute depth with two deepest pressure in April and October is also captured by CMIP6 MME. However, the observed peak of pressure between the two months occurs in June, while it delays one month and appears until July in CMIP6 MME. Compared with CMIP5, CMIP6 MME exhibit evident reduced uncertainties and overall improvement in simulating absolute depth and location of the ASL center, which might be attributed to models' capability of representing the location of Southern Hemisphere westerlies, while the biases in relative depth become even large in CMIP6 MME. In response to future warming from 1.5 °C to 4 °C above pre-industrial levels, the absolute depth of ASL will very likely deepen with larger amplitude in all seasons, while the relative depth might enhance only under high-level warmer world in austral autumn to winter. The CMIP6 MME also projects that the ASL will shift poleward constantly in austral summer and migrate southwestward during austral autumn with the rising global mean temperature. Among all the seasons, the most prominent future changes in intensity and location of ASL are found in autumn. The enhancement and poleward movement of ASL could also be identified during the Ross Sea ice advance season under 1.5 °C–4 °C global warming. The results reveal the potential of CMIP6 models in the ASL study and the impact of ASL on Antarctic climate under different global warming levels.

Extreme hot days over three global mega‐regions: Historical fidelity and future projection

AbstractUsing a downscaled high‐resolution NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX‐GDDP) dataset based on Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) simulations, this study evaluated and compared extreme hot days (EHDs) over the three mega‐regions [the Eastern United States (EUS), Europe (EU) and Eastern Asia (EA)] during the historical period (1981–2005) against observations, resulting in a subset of models with high skill for the past climatology and trend. The observed EHDs over EU exhibit the largest absolute amount and the most significant increases in frequency (4.0 days·decade−1), intensity (0.22°C·decade−1) and extent (8.4°C·days·ecade−1), while no significant trend over EUS is found. Compared with the observation, the largest bias in NEX‐GDDP is the remarkably overestimated increase in the trend over EUS. In the RCP8.5 projection using six models with relatively high fidelity, the increase of EHDs is evidently enhanced during 2030–2054 over the three regions, particularly EUS. The projected trend of EHDs over EUS could be undetermined because of the modelling biases in aerosol effects and internal variation, which is worthy of further investigation in CMIP6.

Looking to the future: key points for sustainable management of northern Great Plains grasslands

The grasslands of the northern Great Plains (NGP) region of North America are considered endangered ecosystems and priority conservation areas yet have great ecological and economic importance. Grasslands in the NGP are no longer self‐regulating adaptive systems. The challenges to these grasslands are widespread and serious (e.g. climate change, invasive species, fragmentation, altered disturbance regimes, and anthropogenic chemical loads). Because the challenges facing the region are dynamic, complex, and persistent, a paradigm shift in how we approach restoration and management of the grasslands in the NGP is imperative. The goal of this article is to highlight four key points for land managers and restoration practitioners to consider when planning management or restoration actions. First, we discuss the appropriateness of using historical fidelity as a restoration or management target because of changing climate, widespread pervasiveness of invasive species, the high level of fragmentation, and altered disturbance regimes. Second, we highlight ecosystem resilience and long‐term population persistence as alternative targets. Third, because the NGP is so heavily impacted with anthropogenic chemical loading, we discuss the risks of ecological traps and extinction debt. Finally, we highlight the importance of using adaptive management and having patience during restoration and management. Consideration of these four points will help management and restoration of grasslands move toward a more successful and sustainable future. Although we specifically focus on the NGP of North America, these same issues and considerations apply to grasslands and many other ecosystems globally.

Professions of Friendship

Abstract This essay examines “professions of friendship”: efforts by populations who are targeted as enemies of the state to proclaim their historical fidelity to the state's foundation and preservation. Such declarations often reinscribe a rigid and often violently statist narrative of politics. The essay argues that the retrenchment of this narrative, when reissued in the name of friendship, does not simply close down political options. It seeks to embolden sentiments of moral obligation across instituted lines of enmity. These solicitations of friendship are burdened by a particular historical task: to envision a past and a future of social cohabitation in a present where its possibilities have been violently undermined and morally devalued. The essay centers on two instances that bookend the past century: the first was delivered in Istanbul by an organization speaking on behalf of Armenians living in territories claimed by the Turkish nationalist movement in 1922; the second was issued by a Kurdish Peace Mother in Diyarbakır, as a plea for an end to state violence in late 2015.

Common Law and Statutory Remedies for Insider Trading in Cryptocurrencies

Recent empirical work has shown that the issuers of digital tokens may possess non-public information about the true prospects of their token, including information that contradicts their white papers or other public statements. In addition, there are numerous stories of pump-and-schemes and nondisclosure of founders' potential diversion of initial coin offering (ICO) assets to personal use or waste. An environment is emerging in which regulators may insist on prior registration and enforcement of norms against insider trading and other abuses. This discussion paper analyzes whether common law doctrines short of onerous registration requirements or long criminal sentences could adequately deter or at least remedy the wrongful insider trading of cryptocurrencies. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of scholars criticized insider trading law as diminishing the incentive to investigate market prices and their underlying fundamentals or to generate actionable narratives of how markets act or will act in the future. The profits of the insider who trades on non-public information could be viewed as a bounty, like that earned by those who trade on analyzed public information; without a high enough bounty, the danger or opportunity signal discovered by the insider will not be conveyed to the market via the price mechanism. The ICO and AppCoin registration debates are analogous to cases in which the courts cabined insider trading law to preserve a space for arm's-length trading advantages or adopted narrowing constructions of other laws for purposes of notice, historical fidelity, or efficiency. In those cases, the courts leave fraud victims to the substantial penalties and generous civil remedies for wrongs not relating exclusively to securities. This may be a better outcome for buyers and sellers of tokens that unlock expressive content on mobile or other computer applications, or access rights to network resources.

Conserving novel ecosystems and layered landscapes along the inter-German border

ABSTRACTFor forty years, Germany was cut in two, its internal border a legacy of the Second World War and ground zero of the Cold War. But the border region, shaped for decades by demographic and economic decline, became an ecological refuge for many of Germany’s endangered plant and animal species. When the wall fell in 1989, conservationists launched an effort to protect the former borderlands and convert them into an ecological corridor called the Green Belt. This paper explores the novel ecosystems along the Green Belt: one a restoration and rewilding project, the other aimed at maintaining the imprint of the Cold War landscape. It shows how conservation of novel ecosystems in Germany and beyond requires a long-range approach that emphasizes opportunism, multifunctionality, experimentation, a flexible interpretation of historical fidelity, and respect for both emergent ecosystems and the deep layers of human history and memory.

Letters from an Austrian Woman: Adapting Transhistoric Girlhood in Sofia Coppola's <em>Marie Antoinette</em> (2006)

Sofia Coppola's 2006 biopic Marie Antoinette has been derided by scholars and critics for its perceived lack of historical depth. However, this article re-examines the role of adaptation and historical fidelity in Coppola's film through a comparative reading of the narratively, structurally, and temporally similar eighteenth-century novel Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1747). Through this parallel reading with Françoise de Graffigny's epistolary novel, I demonstrate how the film is a prime representative of its era in its use of autobiographical centralism and the role of foreign feminine Other as social critic, speaking to a transhistoric girlhood across centuries and borders.

Letters from an Austrian Woman: Adapting Transhistoric Girlhood in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006)

Sofia Coppola's 2006 biopic Marie Antoinette has been derided by scholars and critics for its perceived lack of historical depth. However, this article re-examines the role of adaptation and historical fidelity in Coppola's film through a comparative reading of the narratively, structurally, and temporally similar eighteenth-century novel Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1747). Through this parallel reading with Françoise de Graffigny's epistolary novel, I demonstrate how the film is a prime representative of its era in its use of autobiographical centralism and the role of foreign feminine Other as social critic, speaking to a transhistoric girlhood across centuries and borders.

The Role of Naturalness in Ecological Restoration

While ecological restoration may help bridge the nature-culture gap, restoration still holds relevant meanings for naturalness, as demonstrated in this case study of staff and volunteers in the Cook County Forest Preserves (CCFP) in Illinois, United States. Translating naturalness as an agency policy into restoration goals for sites, CCFP integrated historical evidence, ecological science, and human values. Naturalness was constructed as historical fidelity, a scientific designation to be objectively discovered, while the scales at which people interpreted historical fidelity, namely, species, communities, processes, and practices, were sites of value deliberation. The multiple renderings of naturalness can be a strength that provides flexibility to restore what is locally valued, constructing restoration projects that acknowledge, rather than attempt to overcome, the constructed nature of naturalness.

You Are Not Expected to Survive: Affective Friction in the Combat Shooter Game <em>Battlefield 1</em>

You Are Not Expected to Survive: Affective Friction in the Combat Shooter Game <em>Battlefield 1</em>

Renaming restoration: conceptualizing and justifying the activity as a restoration of lost moral value rather than a return to a previous state

A significant percentage of contemporary restoration work, while informed by history, aims for a novel state rather than an exact simulacrum of any particular historical state. However, the lay definition of “restoration” is to return something to its original state, and this influences public perceptions—and perhaps perceptions inside the field—about what the goals of restoration are. Relying on history to justify the proposed end state of a restoration project is problematic because of climate change, knowledge gaps, and the fact that ecosystems are dynamic and have no single historical state. Restorationists should be open to discussing whether the name of their field is inaccurate and considering alternatives. The process productively forces them to think about, articulate, and justify their values. One possible outcome of this process is a redefinition of “restoration” to mean a restoration of moral value rather than a restoration of a historical state. Restorationists will need to be comfortable talking about choices, intentions, values, and justifications in a world where historical fidelity no longer reigns supreme.

Examining Restoration Goals at a Former Military Site: Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado

Identifying appropriate restoration goals has long posed a challenge in ecological restoration. The task becomes even more difficult in settings with diverse land use histories. After two decades of remediation, a former chemical weapons facility near Denver, Colorado, has become a national wildlife refuge. Restoration efforts have isolated contaminants and restored bison and native prairie, but the site's complex history invites a deeper consideration of reference conditions. This article presents data from a visitor survey and interviews with land managers and citizen groups to examine conceptions of historical fidelity at this site. Results indicate that visitors and land managers orient toward restoration that features a traditional reference condition. Citizen groups point to restoration of cultural features as the highest priorities. This research highlights disparities between constituencies and suggests that restoration work itself may shape values that inform visitors and affirm how a landscape ought to exist.

The changing role of history in restoration ecology

In the face of rapid environmental and cultural change, orthodox concepts in restoration ecology such as historical fidelity are being challenged. Here we re‐examine the diverse roles played by historical knowledge in restoration, and argue that these roles remain vitally important. As such, historical knowledge will be critical in shaping restoration ecology in the future. Perhaps the most crucial role in shifting from the present version of restoration ecology (“v1.0”) to a newer formulation (“v2.0”) is the value of historical knowledge in guiding scientific interpretation, recognizing key ecological legacies, and influencing the choices available to practitioners of ecosystem intervention under conditions of open‐ended and rapid change.