“Returning… as…” by Aaron Oldenburg

Title:

Returning… as…

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Filmmaker, Video Artist, or Animator(s):



• Aaron Oldenburg -
  • University of Baltimore

Symposium:

• ISEA2024: 29th International Symposium on Electronic Art

Venue(s):

• QUT Creative Industries Precinct, The Block, Brisbane, Australia

Artist Statement:

This takes place in a virtual reality space with a black, silhouetted foreground. The Styly installation has excerpts of gameplay on a video loop, with a link to the software. The application can be side-loaded onto a Meta Quest 1-3. Quest 1 is preferred, as its screen shows the darkest black.

The landscape is coming toward you. With you, your neighbours look out from their balconies. The time of day is always sunset. Bodies disappear and re-appear in different forms.

The future arrives like waves and washes things away. Entities like fireflies move and flash in the darkness. They buzz when you touch and transform when you grasp them: a body, a parasite, dirt.

Each body is in a state of transition. Some have roots and mud. Some are moved by mysterious, microscopic processes.

Disaster repeats and death transforms, both of which you are watching happen from a frozen point in the ongoing collapse. The darkness obscures the details that might illuminate what happened up until now.

You and your neighbours are separately all staring vacantly at the horizon. You can feel the vibrations of the memories of this place through your hands.