The Maintenance Game is a self-sustaining simulation set within a decaying architectural labyrinth. Populated by fully automated digital entities designed to simulate life and labor, the work stages an endless cycle of repair, regulation, and erosion. Each inhabitant operates according to a behavioral triad: what they do, how they do it, and why. From obsessive Liquidators scrubbing contamination from unstable surfaces, to melancholic Friends maintaining social infrastructure for gatherings that never happen, to Planners endlessly redesigning a system that resists their control: every entity performs its role with automated sincerity.

The simulation runs without player intervention, unfolding in real time as inhabitants navigate shifting tasks and systemic failures. The audience is positioned as a witness to a world held together by its own inertia. In this game, every repair carries the seed of future collapse. No grand catastrophe arrives, but no resolution emerges either. Instead, the work evokes the slow violence of systemic deterioration where routines of upkeep become indistinguishable from rituals of decline.

Part of Burr’s larger Aria Engine project, a room-sized video game composed of interconnected installations, The Maintenance Game explores the emotional logic of systems that cannot stop running. Viewers are left to observe a machine-world obsessed with order, unable to evolve or collapse. Drawing from the logic of architectural modernism, The Maintenance Game reveals a society built with bureaucracy as its existential purpose. It is not a game to be played. It is a game already playing itself whose only victory is its continued endurance.

Peter Burr is an artist from Brooklyn, NY who transforms complex computational systems into emotional, sensory experiences through large-scale immersive environments. Drawing from early experiments with computational graphics in the mid-nineties, Burr's practice has evolved to incorporate techniques that merge fundamental computing operations with modern real-time rendering systems. His work frequently explores the relationship between human-machine interfaces and the underlying systems that drive them.

Previously Burr worked under the alias Hooliganship and founded the video label Cartune Xprez through which he produced hundreds of live multimedia exhibitions and touring programs showcasing a multi-generational group of artists at the forefront of experimental animation. His practice has been recognized through grants and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Grant, and a Sundance New Frontier Fellowship. His work has been presented at major cultural institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Barbican Centre, Documenta 14, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Pompidou.

Throughout his career, Burr has maintained an active presence in the computational arts field, with exhibitions in over 25 countries. He regularly presents his research at institutions including past keynotes at Yale University and Ars Electronica. He is a current PhD candidate in video games at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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