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Most people think “rarity” is just a crypto gimmick or a trading-card mechanic. I think it’s deeper: rarity is a meaning engine; a way to make identity feel felt, not just selected. In this article, I’ll show how Nostalgie World evolved from a failed startup into a generative universe of 1,000+ algorithmic characters, each with a measurable rarity score, and why I’m now rebuilding my artistic practice around one world, where every exhibition becomes a portal, and every product helps people reclaim attention, freedom, and belonging.
Nostalgie World started as a startup… and it failed before it even began.
The concept didn’t click, the structure wasn’t ready, and I didn’t have the internal stability to force it into existence.
That season overlaps with something more personal: I was experiencing panic attacks.
And panic attacks teach you a brutal truth: mental health is deeply misunderstood. If you haven’t lived it, you can sympathize, but you can’t fully feel what it’s like.
Your body is hijacked, your mind racing, your world shrinking.
When you can’t explain what’s happening inside you, you start to feel alone inside it.
So I started building a system.
Not as a pitch. As a container. As a world designed to make people feel less alone.
A fictional universe made of real people
In 2022, Nostalgie World became an interactive art installation and an IP project; a fictional universe populated by algorithmically generated characters.
Not a handful. Over 1,000 unique characters, generated through a ruleset and statistical logic, a generative system built to produce variation at scale.
But I didn’t want “random avatars.” I wanted identity you could feel.
So I built a rarity system into the generator: every character isn’t just unique… Every character has a rarity score, a measurable way to calculate how scarce that exact combination is across the whole collection.
Some traits are common. Some are rare. Some combinations are statistically unlikely.
It creates the emotional logic of trading cards:
Not all avatars are equal.
Not because one is “better,” but because scarcity creates meaning. A rare character feels discovered, like it has a story. Like you pulled it out of the world.
And that mirrors something human:
People aren’t interchangeable.
Even if our struggles rhyme, our combinations are singular.
The medium isn’t art. It’s attention.
As Nostalgie World evolved, I realized something: the real medium wasn’t interactive art.
It was attention.
Attention isn’t just what you look at. It’s what you repeatedly reinforce.
Modern digital environments don’t merely show information, they shape what feels relevant, what fades away, and which identity you rehearse on repeat.
If you don’t design your own defaults, someone else will.
That’s why I write about attention architecture: because we keep treating attention like a moral issue (“I’m weak,” “I’m addicted,” “I lack discipline”), when the deeper truth is environmental.
You feel scattered because you’re living inside systems designed to compete for your perceptual bandwidth.
So Nostalgie World became my counter-move:
A world built to return authorship; not through guilt or hustle, but through design.
The science of personality development is why I’m rebuilding my practice around one world
Here’s where my writing on the science of personality development becomes personal.
I’m still evolving. I’m still exploring my artistic identity.
And if personality development teaches anything, it’s this:
Identity isn’t a fixed object you “find.”
It keeps updating across adulthood. Purpose evolves. Taste matures. Values clarify. You don’t become static; you become more specific.
That’s exactly what’s happening in my artistic practice.
For years, I explored big themes across different formats: perception, behavior, technology, identity. But now I’m narrowing the beam. I’m becoming more deliberate.
Nostalgie World isn’t just a project I make “alongside” my art practice anymore.
It’s becoming the spine of it.
Every real world exhibition I participate in isn’t just an isolated event.
It’s an entry point into the world. A chapter. A portal.
A moment that can extend into a user’s ongoing identity inside Nostalgie World.
So instead of exhibitions being endpoints, they become onboarding moments:
- you enter the installation
- you scan a QR code
- you collect a badge or artifact on your profile
- you unlock an element, a character trait, a memory, a beacon
- and that IRL moment becomes part of your persistent journey
That’s the shift.
From “I show work in a room” → to “I expand the world in public.”
From installation to living ecosystem
Nostalgie World proved itself in physical space first.
It was awarded People’s Choice at Doncaster Art Fair (2023) and exhibited again at MATAROA Awards (2025).
But installations have a limitation:
They exist in moments.
A room. A night. A festival. A window of attention.
And the people who most need softness, reflection, and understanding aren’t always walking into galleries on opening night.
So I expanded the project into what it always wanted to become:
A next-generation immersive storytelling ecosystem of art, software and community, tied together through identity.
The first shipped digital experience: The Journey of Reset
The first digital product I shipped inside Nostalgie World is The Journey of Reset.
It’s designed like an onboarding ritual:
A flow where you answer personalized questions, not “quiz fluff,” but prompts that capture your current state.
From those answers, the system generates:
- a personal report
- an archetype / profile summary
- a directionally clear plan (reflection-only; not clinical)
Then it delivers The Soft Reset: a digital journaling prompt document that guides a 7-day reset practice.
The goal isn’t transformation as performance.
It’s authorship. A soft reset is a way to stop living inside default narratives, and start writing your own again.
What I’m building next: The Wall of Nostalgia
The next major piece of the ecosystem is The Wall of Nostalgia.
An interactive map where people can post:
- memories
- kind words
- affirmations
- encouragement for strangers
These posts are called Beacons.
They’re free. Public. Human.
But the real move is what happens next:
Those beacons won’t just stay on a screen.
They become inputs for a physical installation; an interactive smart mirror.
A “physical app” that renders these messages into an object you can encounter every morning.
So the system becomes a loop:
People write kindness into the world → the world reflects it back into physical space.
This is what I wish existed when I was going through panic attacks:
A system that makes warmth feel real again.
Unified identity: profiles, progression, and avatars that feel like you
Across the Nostalgie World ecosystem, users will have a unified profile.
You’ll be able to:
- level up and earn badges based on meaningful actions across products
- carry continuity across reflections, rituals, and contributions
- customize an avatar using the same visual elements as the IP characters
So your profile becomes a character; not a “social profile,” but a symbolic identity artifact that evolves as you evolve.
And the rarity system matters here too:
Because when avatars have scarcity and uniqueness, they feel discovered. Collected. Owned.
Not all avatars are equal. And that’s the point.
Your journey shouldn’t feel generic.
What this has always been about
Nostalgie World started as a startup that failed before it began.
But it became something stronger than a startup:
A builder’s response to a human problem.
Panic attacks showed me how invisible suffering can be, and how quickly people misread you when your nervous system is on fire.
So I built a universe where people can feel seen without overexplaining.
A system that treats attention like something sacred, not exploitable.
A world where identity isn’t imposed by algorithms; it’s authored through reflection, rituals, and connection.
And now, as my own personality and purpose keep evolving, I’m doing the same thing with my practice:
I’m becoming more specific. More integrated. More world-based.
Every exhibition becomes a portal. Every product becomes a chapter. Every user becomes a character where real people inside a fictional universe designed to return something modern systems keep stealing:
attention, meaning, and freedom of choice.
If you want to understand the world’s theme and mission at a deeper level, you can read the full about page here.
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