Author: Junxin Deng

By using VR to reconstruct childhood scenes imbued with emotion, the project allows viewers to re-experience fragments of an imaginative childhood within virtual space, evoking collective resonance and reflection.

Background：
In the past few decades, as society rapidly developed, people’s focus shifted from basic needs to spiritual fulfillment. Yet many children during this time lacked emotional companionship, as their parents were often busy with work or business.

Based on the fantasies that emerged due to the lack of parental companionship during their childhood, I hope this work can make up for some of the regrets.

Specific historical and cultural context:
Residential communities in China in the early 21th century

VIRTUAL NOSTALGIA

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

#ARCHIVETATEISHI

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

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.

Presence can be defined as a psychological state in which individuals experience a mediated environment as if they were physically situated within it (Schubert et al., 2001; Slater & Steed, 2000; Steuer, 1992). The formation of this state relies on cognitive and emotional responses to mediated content, during which individuals subconsciously compare and integrate ambiguous memories with the mediated stimuli. In this process, memory models are updated, and mismatched information is suppressed, thereby reconciling discrepancies between memory and mediated input. Ultimately, the virtual and the real are psychologically equated, giving rise to a sense of presence (Sheridan, 1999).

Nostalgia, by contrast, is an affective state triggered when memories of familiar elements from the past are evoked (Boren, 2016). Yet such memories are not entirely accurate reconstructions of lived reality; rather, they are often subject to subconscious modification or even fabrication.

Presence and nostalgia share important commonalities. Both are psychologically constructed experiences that emphasize subjective perception over objective fact. Both involve the mental re-presentation of reality, and both depend on the suppression or modification of incongruent information. In this sense, they are actively constructed meanings— “as-if-real” sensations generated by the mind (Lee, 2004). Their primary distinction lies in temporal orientation: nostalgia is grounded in past lived experiences, whereas presence is more closely tied to embodied immediacy within a virtual environment.

Building on this parallel, nostalgia may be reinterpreted through the lens of presence. When ambiguous memories of past familiar experiences (as mediated through reality, film, or VR environments) overlap with present mediated stimuli, individuals subconsciously revise or reconstruct those memories. As a result, past memory and present virtual content (e.g., a VR experience) are psychologically equated, simultaneously triggering nostalgic affect and presence (Lee, 2004). This convergence produces the sensation of “being in the past,” highlighting VR’s unique capacity to maximize the nostalgic experience.

This study adopts a qualitative research approach, employing one-on-one semi-structured interviews to explore how members of China’s Generation Z perceive, narrate, and emotionally project their childhood memories. The aim is to extract shared emotional cues and spatial imagery from participants’ subjective experiences, providing narrative and visual inspiration for the construction of VR scenes.
A total of five Chinese Generation Z individuals, born between 2000 and 2003, were invited to participate in the study. This cohort grew up during a period of rapid social and cultural transformation, and their childhood memories often embody both nostalgia and distinctive features of their era. To ensure diversity in geographical background and life experience, the participants included male, female, and gender minority individuals from northern, eastern, southeastern, and southwestern China.
Each interview was conducted individually, lasting approximately 30 to 45 minutes. The questions focused on participants’ recollections of childhood scenes, objects, and emotional impressions. The complete questionnaire is provided in Appendix A. All interviews were conducted in quiet settings and audio-recorded with participants’ consent. The recordings were then transcribed verbatim, and the transcripts were repeatedly reviewed during analysis to identify key words and recurring themes.
To help participants recall their childhood memories more naturally, they were not required to respond strictly within the boundaries of the interview questions. Instead, they were encouraged to speak freely and associate spontaneously, allowing their most vivid and emotionally resonant memories to surface without being shaped by the structure of the questionnaire.
Subsequently, I conducted thematic analysis on the interview texts, identifying recurring emotions and motifs within participants’ narratives. These were gradually categorized into themes such as “spaces that made me feel safe as a child” and “objects of collective memory.” Examples include playing with friends and classmates in the neighborhood after school, or recalling Rubik’s cubes and colorful stationery. These themes and symbols were then translated into the design elements of the VR environment—spatial atmosphere, color filters, scene content, and interactive imagery—ultimately forming a “collective subconscious space” (or “shared memory space”) guided by emotional resonance rather than literal reconstruction. The goal was to evoke a sense of childhood nostalgia through visual and perceptual experience.
Throughout the process of interviewing, analysis, and design, I acted as both a listener and an interpreter. Consequently, the final VR experience inevitably reflects subjective selection and artistic transformation. The purpose of this research is not to “recreate” the authentic childhood scenes of China’s Generation Z in the early 2000s, but to explore whether nostalgic emotions can be re-experienced and shared through the medium of virtual reality.