In the synopsis of his work “Virtual Nostalgia,” mototki-i mentions that he is exploring why people feel nostalgia for scenes they have never actually seen. He proposes several hypotheses: 1. Such scenes remind us of our own childhood; 2. Analogous to how people often feel nostalgic about blurred images in photos taken by film cameras, could it be that their low resolution evokes memories of past connections with such old media? 3. Is nostalgia triggered by the objects themselves, or is it linked to the media that characterized each era?
The work places commonly seen objects from the past within a virtual space designed in a post-realist style. Through this, mototki-i seeks to investigate whether viewers can still form an emotional, nostalgic connection with these “old objects” even in a post-realist virtual environment, or whether, detached from a realistic setting, such objects struggle to evoke feelings of nostalgia.
#ARCHIVETATEISHI-by atart
Japanese VR creator atart (Kenichiro Hirai) presented a VR work titled #ARCHIVETATEISHI at Japan’s 39th Electric Arts Conference. Developed from an earlier project called Merging Memories, this work was created to commemorate Tateishi’s “Nombeyokocho” drinking alley. Due to redevelopment in front of the station, this Showa-era alley is slated for demolition. In an effort to preserve this piece of history for future generations, the artist is using virtual reality technology to digitally archive the area.
Merging Memories is the sketch of #ARCHIVETATEISHI. In Merging Memories, the artist atart began by collecting photos of Tateishi’s drinking alley from Instagram. These images were used to create 3D scans of the respective locations. The resulting models were then placed into a VR space, where virtual screens—displaying the original, date-stamped photos—were positioned to match the exact angles from which the pictures were taken.