What is Complicated Nonsense?

Everything.

Everything is complicated nonsense, upon deeper inspection. Whether it’s video games, emergent technology, experimental music, interactive art, the everyday mundane or life itself. But especially the first things, which are mainly what we're working on here at Complicated Nonsense.

Who am I?

My name is Horațiu Roman. I’m a game developer, musician, experimental artist, creative technologist and founder of Complicated Nonsense.

I have been a professional game developer since 2013, when I was studying media technology at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. I was the lead developer in VRUnicorns from 2014-2019, where we played around with cutting edge virtual reality, released VR games #SelfieTennis, #SkiJump and #Archery, and mobile puzzle game Aki Robots. Later, I designed and developed the Romanian boardgame Zestrea and ran a successful kickstarter for it, started working with design strategy studio Manyone as freelancer and later part-time in the emergent tech team, released a few music albums and, over time, worked on many creative projects that I forgot about.

I am a serial game jammer, having been to more than 50 game jams while traveling to different countries, and also organized events to try and bring together creative people to help them make something new. I have met and collaborated with some nutty people from all walks of life.

Why are we here?

I started this studio in 2020 and I wanted it to represent the work I like to do and am good at. It took me a while to formulate it, but here I try to give an overview of what I am trying to achieve.

I am involved in many diverse and multidisciplinary projects, and I want to showcase them here on the website. I like when my own projects surprise me, and I think that by showcasing them in a cool way, they might inspire both myself and others to do even more. I think a lot about the creative process, besides practicing it, and I hope to share some of what I learned over the years.

The best projects I ever worked on have been in collaboration with brilliant people, and I hope to attract more eyes towards our work in hopes for more nice collaborations. In order to facilitate such collaborations, and to allow good projects to happen, I must also run Complicated Nonsense as a business, by doing client work and original projects, and I might write about that too.

The inspiration for the title came from my diverse and unusual projects that evade mainstream definition. My projects usually start from silly ideas, employ interesting technology and try to give people exceptional, immersive experiences.

I want to make people think and feel.

What is it exactly?

It's hard to define Complicated Nonsense in a simple, no-nonsense way. Instead of a definition, I came up with a few things that I want it to be.

Complicated Nonsense strives to be:

• a studio that makes games and interactive art
• a brand and discussion around
  • creativity
  • experimental art
  • playful media
  • playful technology
  • new artistic expression
  • experimental music & sound art
  • interactive experiences
  • alternative storytelling
  • multimedia, cross-media, spatial media
  • new media
  • futuristic thought, imagining better worlds
• a way to inspire thru unexpected juxtapositions
• a productive space where interesting work takes place
• a gallery of interesting works in this space
• a chase to raise new creative ways
• a daze, a blaze, a wondrous maze, a craze that pays
• not just a phase

I learned from my experience in the creative industry that this creative work we do, though sometimes meaningful and useful, is also superfluous, unnecessary and often unintelligible. And I would describe most games and even most art of all shapes and forms in this way: it’s all a bunch of complicated nonsense.

And that's why I love it.