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Contemporary theatre is often incorporating elements of participatory art, where spectators are usually participants or even co-creators of the performance. The theatremakers are freeing the spectator from his passive position and are delegating part of the responsibility of the pieces´s final form on him. It could look like the third theatre reform is coming: after the director and the space, the spectator is freed, activated, made authentic. However, Claire Bishop states in Artificial Hells that the willingness to participate is just another level of passivity, because it requires submitting to artist´s concept. Contemporary society desires authenticity and uses participation as a false substitute. The spectacularity has replaced performativity: people are revealing their lives on social networks but are afraid to talk to strangers on the street. A researcher is a very special kind of spectator – but he is still a spectator. The experience of the spectator drastically changes between seeing a theatre piece where performers and audience are strictly divided and one where the line between the two is blurred. In a similar way a researchers view changes, if he is „only“ a spectator of the piece or if he has participated on it as an artist. The quality that is changing is authenticity of the perception. How authentic should a spectator – or a researcher – be? When researching contemporary theatre pieces the lecturer was confronted with his own authenticity. Is artistic research authentic, when the researcher is writing a text on his own theatre piece, which he knows inside out, and thus can manipulate the impression of the reader? What changes, if the researcher has not participated on the piece and is doing his research from the position of a spectator? Can the research also be done by not seeing the performance at all – and could it even be beneficial?