Professor
Assistant Professor in the Simulations and Digital Entertainment program
Education
M.F.A., University of Maryland
B.F.A., Florida State University
Aaron Oldenburg is a Baltimore-based game, interactive and video artist. His work has exhibited in festivals and galleries in New York, Johannesburg, London, Buenos Aires, São Paulo and Los Angeles, including SIGGRAPH, A MAZE. International Games and Playful Media Festival, the LeftField Collection at EGX Rezzed, Slamdance DIG, Game On! - El arte en el juego, and FILE Electronic Language International Festival. His games have been written about in Kill Screen, Baltimore City Paper, BmoreArt, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
He teaches game design as a professor in The University of Baltimore's Simulation and Game Design program and has an MFA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His writing on games has been published in Game Studies, Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, Hyperrhiz, Acta Ludologica, and the proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA). In October 2003 he finished two years as an HIV Health Extension Agent for the Peace Corps in Mali.
My work comes from a mix of autobiographical experience and theoretical experimentation. Exploring technical constraints and limitations helps me give shape to concepts and subjects that are not inherently technical.
My mediums tend to be videogames, interactive and non-interactive procedural software, and video, with the latter often using the former as material. I create work using game engines, various coding languages, 2D and 3D digital art creation software, and audio sampling. Occasionally, my work has involved physical computing and other experimental interfaces, as well as more traditional art forms.
Simulations of instability, the overwhelming power of nature, post-human worlds and dissociation are themes I lean toward. They all come from a similar place, even if they produce different results. All of them can be seen as a form of rupture with our assumed control over our world and reality. There is a spiritual element of letting go or riding the discomfort.
Exploring technical constraints and limitations helps me give shape to concepts and subjects that are not inherently technical. Recently, I have created procedural software work where, although I might have started with some interaction or game mechanics, I eventually reduced interaction to almost nothing. These works generally have some form of generative landscape and occasionally also artificially-intelligent non-playable characters whose behaviors one can observe.
Here, the focus is less on a material or physical conversation between the artist and player, and, as in other non-interactive art forms, more of a cognitive dialogue. The output is still generative and real-time, so what the audience is seeing is unique to that moment in time and partly the result of hidden, currently-running processes and systems.
I also create video from screen capture of my videogame and software art. Sometimes, this is only for documentation. For a few works, the edited video and screenshot prints have become the final, primary work, with the gameplay as a kind of performance.
I teach game design capstone, experimental game development, advanced coding, audio, game design theory, and technical art.
Refereed Journal Articles
Oldenburg, A. (2024). Observing the World without You: Automatic Walking and Death Meditation. Acta Ludologica. 7(2), 94-108.
Oldenburg, A. (2023). Simulating Dissociation: The Psychedelic Experience and Videogame Space. Hyperrhiz. (26),
Oldenburg, A. 4th International Conference on Anticipation, "Night Walks: memory, dread, and sense-making through networked environmental memory," Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. (2022).
Oldenburg, A. 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art, "Night Walks Through Asynchronously-Networked Space," Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. (2022).
Oldenburg, A. REDTalks, "Night Walks: distributed gameplay systems driven by abstracted representations of network data," University of Baltimore, John and Frances Angelos Law Center. (2022).
Oldenburg, A. 13th Annual New Media Caucus Showcase at College Arts Association Conference, "Night Walks," New Media Caucus, online. (2022).
Oldenburg, A. Science of Consciousness REBOOT conference, "Desert Mothers: a multiplayer virtual reality meditation circle," Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona and online. (2020).
Bmore Art: The article, "The Maryland State Arts Council Triennial: An Immersive Conversation at MAP," by Quentin Gibeau, was about the show I had work in at Maryland Art Place. In included text and image of my work.
https://bmoreart.com/2023/06/the-maryland-state-arts-council-triennial-an-immersive-conversation-at-map.html (2023).
Secrets of the Jungle: Footage I took of Jonestown, Guyana, was aired on Episode 9 of Secrets of the Jungle
Jungle Secrets Productions, Inc, Discovery Communications, LLC, Toronto, ON (2022).
Foresight: Gaming and Simulation episode: Interviewed by Dr. Nat Fuller on the game industry, game design, teaching, and creative work. (2021).
PEGBRJE: 1000 Heads Among the Trees and Resistance Is Fruitile: This was a post on Medium by Jacob Vorstenbosch, an "Audio/Narrative developer who decided to take on an arduous task of giving an overview of all 59 pages in the bundle for Racial Justice and Equality." (2021).
BmoreArt: "My Idea of Fun: Aaron Oldenburg’s Slow Cinema Video Games" by Brandon Soderberg
https://bmoreart.com/2020/02/my-idea-of-fun-aaron-oldenburgs-slow-cinema-video-games.html" target="_blank">https://bmoreart.com/2020/02/my-idea-of-fun-aaron-oldenburgs-slow-cinema-video-games.html">https://bmoreart.com/2020/02/my-idea-of-fun-aaron-oldenburgs-slow-cinema-video-games.html (2020).
Hyperhype: Long-form article in Spanish, "Indies a la Deriva VII: Aaron Oldenburg" surveyed and analyzed a selection of my videogame works.
Original: https://www.hyperhype.es/indies-a-la-deriva-vol-viii-aaron-oldenburg/" target="_blank">https://www.hyperhype.es/indies-a-la-deriva-vol-viii-aaron-oldenburg/">https://www.hyperhype.es/indies-a-la-deriva-vol-viii-aaron-oldenburg/
Google Translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hyperhype.es%2Findies-a-la-deriva-vol-viii-aaron-oldenburg%2F (2020).