Corrupted Memory

I grew up in a provincional town in Russia. My world was limited, familiar, and predictable. From a very young age, I dreamed of living somewhere in the West, in a place that felt greener, calmer, safer, and more beautiful than the reality around me. In my imagination, life there was perfect: quiet streets, small houses, bicycles, parks, schools within walking distance, and a sense of freedom.
When I discovered Google Maps and street view services, this dream became more detailed and more real. I didn’t just look at images, I traveled. I walked through neighborhoods, followed streets, stopped in front of houses, and imagined myself going to school, riding a bike, and coming home in the evening. Through the screen, I lived a life that I did not have.
These virtual journeys became part of my everyday life. They were not entertainment, but emotional experiences. I built routines, habits, and scenes of the future in my mind. Over time, these imagined episodes became deeply rooted in my memory.
Years later, I realized something strange: I feel nostalgic for streets I have never walked on. I remember moments that never happened. My mind reacts to these places as if they were part of my real past. The boundary between memory and imagination has gradually disappeared.
“Corrupted Memory” reflects this internal state. The image presents an idealized Western suburb distorted by digital glitches and visual errors. These distortions symbolize the nature of memory: unstable, fragmented, and easily influenced by dreams, media, and technology. What appears to be a peaceful childhood memory is, in fact, a constructed image shaped by screens, expectations, and longing for another future.
The glitch is not only a technical effect, but a metaphor for broken recollection. It represents how imagined futures can overwrite lived experience, creating emotional attachments to places and lives that never existed. When reality feels limiting, imagination becomes a form of survival.
Years later, I actually moved to Europe and now live in Italy. Part of my childhood dream became real. I found myself surrounded by streets, parks, and houses similar to those I once saw only on a screen. However, I realized that real life never fully matches imagined life. The city from my childhood fantasies turned out to be complex, imperfect, and alive. The place where I “lived” in my imagination remained separate, unreal and unreachable.
This is why this work is not about fulfilling a dream, but about the gap between imagined past and lived present. Some memories remain fictional, even when you come close to what you once dreamed of.
This project also speaks about nostalgia for something unreal. It asks whether we can mourn a life we never lived, and how virtual experience becomes part of our emotional history. In a world saturated with images and simulations, memory itself becomes vulnerable and unreliable.
These imaginary journeys helped me believe that another life was possible. Even if that life existed only on a screen, its emotional impact was real and formative.
By presenting a false childhood memory as a broken digital image, this work invites viewers to reflect on their own unrealized dreams, imagined pasts, and on the invisible influence of technology in shaping who we become.