Tag: Bryn Oh

Bryn Oh’s Imogen and the Pigeons first appeared in Second Life over a decade ago. Like all of Bryn’s art, it was deeply immersive, experimental, and offered a depth of narrative that might be seen as both challenging to navigate with its layered themes, and visually engaging. Also, as with most of Bryn’s work, it sat within her broader narrative universe, started with her Rabbicorn story, with its most direct link to that universe being via The Singularity of Kumiko, which was both a physical prequel to Imogen and the Pigeons and as sequel – so to speak – to Imogen’s life, focusing as it did on the story of Imogen’s daughter.

However, whilst I have attempted to follow all of Bryn’s creativity within these pages, Imogen and the Pigeons is a work that escaped my attention back in 2013, so I was pleased to be able to pay a visit to it following its extensive update and return to Second Life, where it re-opened on April 25th, 2025.

As noted, this is a story sitting within Bryn’s broader narrative universe. But  this does not mean you necessarily need to have specific knowledge of that universe; the central themes of Imogen are accessible to anyone visiting, and the layering of ideas and themes allows the visitor the opportunity to peel them open howsoever they wish and however deeply they wish, be in during a single visit or over multiple visits or as a result of witnessing and allowing what they’ve encountered to whisper quietly to them during and after a visit.

That said, there are core themes throughout Bryn’s work, and these are very present within Imogen, as Bryn explains:

My artistic focus is in the way modern society is affected by technology, ranging between human/machine and machine/machine relationships. Often we consider technology to open channels for people to interact and engage socially, however, the opposite can occur where people become isolated within their own personal bubble, separate and witnessing the world from a distance almost as a product with brittle popularity. My work expresses a yearning for meaningful connections within the new technological realm that often contains human remoteness. I build virtual reality environments that convey the juxtapositions between human emotion and machine sentience. I combine poetry with a melancholy narrative that explores the themes of connection and belonging.

– Bryn Oh

In terms of presentation, Imogen is richly immersive and takes advantage of some of SL’s most recent updates, such as the use of reflection probes and dynamic mirrors. Core to the installation is Bryn’s own Second Life Experience, which should be accepted on arrival if not a part of your active Experiences. Given all of this, the installation should really be viewed using an up-to-date viewers with, if your system can manage it, at least mirrors being enabled, together with Use Shared Environment set and have local sounds enabled.

It’s also particularly pertinent to remember that Imogen is designed to be both immersive and interactive – a lot of the initial parts of the installation rely on you finding your way forward, and some of the time this may not seem obvious. As such, do be sure to mouse-over things you may find – particularly things which look like they may be buttons or switches.  In this latter regard, I’m not just talking about the in-world “audio” buttons you can press to hear recitals of the poems that form the written narrative for the story; there are also those that will open doors and portals.

Be prepared to put some effort into getting around – routes are not direct (although some are volume-triggered teleports, making transitions between chapters in the story fairly straightforward). When you initially find your way outside, for example, the journey does not end at the water’s edge, but you’ll have to have to exercise care and have a keen eye in order to make your way upwards. However, like Bryn, I’m not going to point you towards where you should go or what you should do.

I have said in the past that I think of my artwork here in virtual worlds almost as paintings you can enter and explore. The beauty of a painting, the immersion of cinema and then meshed in with a new type of open ended freedom of movement combined with interaction. There are many new and interesting techniques to experiment with inside the virtual art form. The one which I brought up at the beginning, that ties into my new build Imogen and the pigeons, is creating immersion within the artistic environment by creating scenarios which challenge the viewer.  I generally don’t put out text or arrows to tell the viewer where to go or what to do.  I feel this can break the immersion so I let the viewer discover on their own. 

– Bryn Oh

So, what is the story behind Imogen and the Pigeons? As Bryn notes above, it is very much about our relationship with technology. Set in an age where an individual’s memories can be recorded, and then potentially edited, spliced, etc., it explores questions of existence, the human condition, the juxtaposition of connection with others and isolation from them as so often exists when it comes to our increasing reliance on technology for our interactions. Also within it we might find questions concerning our own identity and how we project ourselves in the eyes of others – how willing are we to amend our own histories, intentionally alter our memories and actions when verbalising them, in order to appear more acceptable, more desirable, in their eyes?

Within this, there are many subtexts and other avenues of question those exploring Imogen might find or be prompted to explore. In this I would urge you to observe everything you see at least twice; from the titles of books waiting to be found to drawings on walls to those scattered across a floor in as if torn from a sketchbook and thrown into the air, pretty much everything you encounter within the chapters and scenes, rooms and spaces, throughout Imogen will have something to say.

Even were the route straight-forward, this layering of ideas and subtext is such that Imogen and the Pigeons is not the easiest or nor the most direct narrative to comprehend as one moves through it. Patience and an open, inquisitive mind are essential to both finding your way through the many scenes and rooms and in coming to an understanding as to what might be being whispered to you by your subconscious, as you find your way from the opening scene and back to it.

And if all this sound cryptic, it is only because I do not want to spoil things for you or for Bryn. There is a depth and richness to Imogen that perhaps reaches beyond the likes of Hand and other environments Bryn has created; an almost perfect balance of narrative, adventure, questioning, reflection, warning and mystery (I’m still boggling about the poem of the writer, and whether her name and her appearance are an intentional reference to a producer of immersive adventures with SL, and if so, what it might potentially mean).  Thus, this is an installation which really should be experienced and cogitated upon directly and not offered through a watery translation as I might otherwise give.

SLurl Details

• Imogen and the Pigeons (Immersivist, rated Moderate)

July 6th, 2024, saw the opening of the latest immersive installation by Second Life’s foremost and award-winning multimedia and immersive artist, Bryn Oh.

Herself a digital alter-ego – or perhaps digital incarnation might be a better term – of a Toronto-based artist; although I suspect they would prefer to consider Bryn as a personality with standing in her own right and as unfettered as possible from any sense of human identity. Given Bryn’s success over what is more than 15 years, and the recognition her work has gained in digital, virtual and physical spaces – including her work being the subject of a course taught at York University,  Toronto since 2020 -, this view of her being an independent entity is not unreasonable.

Much of Bryn’s work exists not only in the virtual, but within a universe of her own creation, stories, themes and characters all wrapped within a unique timeline and travelling through environments and worlds throughout unique yet interconnected. They are also individually and collectively – if to a defined degree – reflections of elements from Bryn’s physical world incarnation.

All of the stories and characters are pieces of my life, and the characters are often portions of my personality. It is like a diary of sorts that takes place in a parallel world to our own where technologies advanced at different speeds.

– Bryn Oh

I have been fascinated by Bryn’s work for more than a decade, and have at times attempted to plumb the depths of her work – perhaps at time making presumptions with which she might not agree but has always had the grace not to single out. In 2020 she was certainly kind enough to to discuss her work for this blog (see: Hand and the art of Bryn Oh – in her own words).

With Skyfisher, Bryn presents another chapter in the unfolding stories of some of her familiar – for those who have followed her work  – characters in a further expansion of her universe, which also sees the return of a number of settings and motifs. As such, it is perhaps not so easy to follow in all is complexities as a pert of an ongoing series; however, it is not unfair to say that it also stands – as all of Bryn’s installations do – on its own merits as a story.

The Skyfisher wore a headdress fashioned from deer antlers and twigs. Strings with fishing hooks attached hung from them as she walked slowly down the street towards the spot she had gone to many times before. It was an area where winds converged. Gusts from the rooftops and breezes snaking in from the alleyways all met to make a whirlpool of air that lifted the hooks and strings above the ground. They floated behind the Skyfisher, like a sharp nimbus.

– Bryn Oh, The Skyfisher

For those who do wish to recap – as the saying goes – on “the story so far” (although in this case it is more a matter of understanding the backgrounds to some of the characters and the universe as a whole), then Bryn provides a list of videos which encompass the essential storylines, and which I’ve taken the liberty of listing below.

• Juniper (2011) – a video poem about one of Skyfisher’s main character.
• Hand (2020) – the story of Flipper, which first appeared in Second Life in 2016, before also being realised in Sansar in 2019 and then returning to Second Life in 2020. This forms Part 1 of a trilogy rounded-out by Skyfisher.
• The Brittle Epoch (2021) – following Flitter and friends through a further adventure, and Part 2 of the trilogy.

In addition, Bryn also recommends watching Standby (2013), a trio of poetic narratives.  To this, I’d also suggest those who really want to gain insight into Bryn’s worlds, I’d suggest a run-through of her own multi-part commentaries.

As with The Brittle Epoch, I don’t want to delve into the story of Skyfisher too much; it is a naturally unfolding narrative in which visitors once again follow Flitter and her friends through something of an adventure as they follow the title character through a unique cityscape.

It is essential visitors use the shared environment, and have media enabled and on auto-play; the installation both has unique sound effects and features an English language narrative, once again recorded by Kaneha Atheria.

The latter can be heard on entering locations where it is available, or by clicking the white circular “speaker” buttons found at such locations. For those who prefer and / or form whom English is a second language , notecards containing the narrative which can be read or copy / pasted into a suitable translation tool. Click the glowing moths located close the the speaker buttons to obtain the notecards.

I would advise visitors to take their time exploring the routine through the various settings; there is a lot to discover in addition to following the main narrative, some of which might be obvious, some of which – such as various poems by Bryn – might be easily missed (such as the one in a photo booth). There are also references to Bryn’s wider universe waiting as well.

Prize Draw

To mark the opening of Skyfisher, Bryn is holding a prize draw featuring one of her sculptures, The Dancer, valued at US $350. Details are as follows:

• Tickets can be purchased via the Marketplace at a cost of L$300.
• The draw will be open through until July 31st, 2024, when the winner will be picked at random.
• The winner will be contacted, and will need to supply a shipping address. Bryn will ship the statue at no charge to the winner.

The Dancer is cast in bronze and stands approximately 15 cm (six inches).

Rich is story and detail, Skyfisher is another engaging, immersive and presenting a rich tapestry of characters, events and Easter eggs for following of her tales, and one deserving of the time given to exploring it.

SLurl Details

• Skyfisher (Immersivist, rated Moderate)

Sunday, May 1st, 2022 saw the opening of a new iteration of Bryn Oh’s Lobby Cam, a brand new iteration of an installation first unveiled in 2015 (see: Bryn Oh’s Lobby Cam).

As with the majority of Bryn’s work, Lobby Cam is set within a narrative universe she has created, and so sits with her two other installation currently available for public viewing: an updated version of Hand (which I reviewed in 2020), and the more recent The Brittle Epoch (reviewed here). Made possible by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, Lobby Cam is an entirely new build – new mesh models, soundscape, scripting  – and a new narrative for visitors to follow.

My artwork in Second Life is one long narrative which began in 2009. Each new work I create is a chapter in this story, and in the case of Lobby Cam it is 110 years before the events of the Brittle Epoch and Hand which are being exhibited within the Immersiva and Bryn Oh regions.

– Bryn Oh

As is common with Bryn’s work in Second Life, a visit to the installation commences at a set landing point. Here, for those who have visited Bryn’s work previously, a HUD can be obtained with a simple click, and will attach towards the top right of the viewer window. Those new to Bryn’s work or who have opted to previously tell the viewer to “Forget” they are a part of it, will need to join Bryn’s local Experience in order to access and use the HUD as intended.

Click the top right icon when the HUD – which is a diary – is “open” and it will minimise to free up screen space. Click the icon to expand it again.

An eccentric man discovers an impossible channel on his TV. This begins a story where you determine the ending.

– Bryn Oh on Lobby Cam

Pass beyond the walls of the landing point, and those who remember the original Lobby Cam will doubtless recognise the sea of wheat within its fenced fields and the distant, hulking form of grain elevator 888. Originally built in Keatley, Saskatchewan in the late 1920s, the elevator formed  a part of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, although it has since been relocated and serves now as a museum. However, just as the real elevator served as a local focal point in its day, so too does Bryn’s version of it in Second Life, beckoning people to hurry towards it.

However, giving it to such a temptation will result in visitors missing some key elements in Lobby Cam. As Bryn notes, this is an unfolding story, key elements of which are formed by missing pages from the diary HUD. These are scattered on the ground in various places (such as the path leading away from the landing point and the road pointing towards the grain elevator. Clicking on one when found will “add” it to the diary (the HUD icon will turn to colour). Opening the diary (if closed) and paging through the pages by clicking on them will reveal the entries as they are “added”.

As well as the grain elevator, there are other new elements within the installation – such as the low barn sitting in the middle of one of the wheat fields. These should all be visited, wherever they lay (so sit well out in the landscape) and touched – as Bryn notes, people should pretty much click on everything, inside the grain elevator and outside of it – as some will be interactive and offer up secrets (such as links to Bryn’s videos) or objects.

Key among the latter are an envelope, pen, ink, and paper. Collect them alongside the pages of the diary, and you can further involve yourself in Bryn’s universe by interacting with another of her characters, Fern, as she explains:

[With them you can] write a letter from the main character [of Lobby Cam] to Fern. If you click the red mailbox on the train platform you can send this message to me directly by e-mail. I will respond to all letters sent and this will end the story. Depending on what you write. I will write as Fern would reply to your message.

– Bryn Oh on Lobby Cam

Note that Bryn’s replies really are individually written in response to your own words, not pre-prepared responses. Also, please keep in mind the last time she did this, she received several hundred e-mails, so it understandably took her a little time to respond to all of them!

Finished to resemble a painting – the use of the elevator, if I recall correctly from 2015, having been inspired by a painting Bryn either saw or created (my apologies to her for forgetting which, or possibly mis-remembering), Lobby Cam is deceptive in all it has to offer, and as such, is definitely more than work seeing. For those who need additional context, both Hand and The Brittle Epoch are also open to viewing, SLurls below.

With thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for their continued support of Bryn’s work.

Related Links

• Lobby Cam SLurl (Immersivist, rated Moderate)
• Hand (Bryn Oh, rated General)
• The Brittle Epoch (Immersiva, rated Moderate)
• Hand and the art of Bryn Oh – in her own words (this blog, 2020)

Opening on November 1st at her arts region Immersiva, is Bryn Oh’s latest work, entitled The Brittle Epoch, an installation that has been several months in development.

Whilst it can be viewed as an installation in its own right, The Brittle Epoch forms the second part of Bryn’s Hand trilogy, and so a degree of context with that story is extremely beneficial for visitors. In addition, the Hand trilogy are themselves contained within a universe and timeline that frames and encompasses all of Bryn’s core works, a point those who are not so familiar with her work may unaware. To this end, the landing point for The Brittle Epoch includes a number of reference resources, as do the notes for the installation; for convenience, I’ve gathered the core of these at the end of this article.

However, if you have not previously visited Hand, I would strongly urge you to do so before entering The Brittle Epoch -you can find it on Bryn’s adjoining region courtesy of a grant Bryn received from the Ontario Arts Council.

Hand is the story of a time when society transitioned to living and working in the virtual space. In this society people housed their bodies in inexpensive pods hooked up to food cannisters. They discarded their houses and furniture as they were no longer needed. They evolved past their physical bodies and lived digitally as the person they wanted to be. Overseeing all of this is a singularity AI named Milkdrop, first seen in the Singularity of Kumiko, though only now revealed to be an AI.

– Bryn Oh on Hand

To help understand the overall context / chronology of the narrative flow of Bryn’s installations, the landing point at The Brittle Epoch offers a timeline of core events, together with the various installations and pieces Bryn has created over the course of the last decade or so. For those of us who are admitted “Brynists” (so to speak), it is worthwhile pausing to consider this before moving on to the start point proper.

As an experiential installation, The Brittle Epoch is interactive, as with Hand and other elements of Bryn’s work. Once within the installation itself, be sure to mouse over and touch items, as many can either provide additional information or offer an object. It is also essential you have local sounds enabled, as sounds are used both immersively and narratively. Finally, in terms of general set-up, the installation is also best experienced under its default environmental settings (World → Environments → Use Shared Environment) and with Shadows enabled (Preferences → Graphics make sure Advanced Lighting Model is checked, and then select Sun + Moon or Sun + Moon / Projectors from the Shadows drop-down  – both will give the required lighting).

Again, as with many of Bryn’s pieces, a HUD forms a central element. If you are not a member of the Bryn Oh Experience, you’ll be asked to join in order to receive it. When attached to your screen (this happens as you pass through / touch the doorway to be teleported to the first scene in the story), the HUD will provide an unfolding narrative as you progress through the installation – instructions on its use will be displayed in local chat.

The focus of this installation is the character of Flutter, the girl first introduced to audience in Hand and one of the children left out of the VR “nirvana” entered into by adults, leaving them forced to fend for themselves. She, together with her friends, will lead you through the installation as they embark on a journey from the heart of the city featured in Hand to the suburbs – a place very, very, different in nature, being caught in the midst of a hard winter suggestive of a new ice age that is befalling the world. As such, we follow them into an airship for the trip out to the ‘burbs, and then through the deserted homes that lie there – and beyond.

Here you need to keep an eye on the butterfly icon / listen for the tones so you witness the unfolding story – and be sure to touch the green button when you get to the Medusa, to follow a story-within-the story (and click the black balls before the glowing doors to progress on through this story, which on its conclusion will return you to the snowbound suburbs, allowing you to continue your journey through the story.

I do not wish to give too much of the story away here to avoid spoiling it as it unfolds through its sixteen scenes, so that you might follow and experience it for yourself. What I will say is, that as The Brittle Epoch is bringing Bryn’s larger, decade-spanning story to its conclusion, so too does it reacquaint us with a number of Bryn’s characters from previous works, including Lady Carmagnolle, Rabbicorn and the Daughter of Gears, and others, There is also a lot that might be extracted in terms of familiar mythologies and tales, and enough discrete elements that can also engage our own imaginations, allowing us to add our own twists to the story – a habit I’ve tended to have with several of Bryn’s installations!

The concluding part of the story will be unveiled in due course. However, in the meantime, I would note that Bryn’s work – in particular The Singularity of Kumiko, Hand, and The Brittle Epoch, form part of a course being taught by Carolyn Steele of York University, Toronto, and I hope to cover more of this in the near future with both Dr. Steele and Bryn.

SLurl and Additional Links

• The Brittle Epoch (Immersiva, rated Moderate)

As noted, Bryn’s installations all take place within the same over-arching universe, and thus share degrees of connectedness. As such, for those possibly unfamiliar with her work, or who wish to re-acquaint themselves with her themes and idea, I recommend the following resources:

• Hand:
  • The current iteration of Hand within Second Life, courtesy of an Ontario Arts Council grant.
  • Hand within Sansar (ideal for those with VR headsets).
  • The Hand machinima by Bryn, (also viewable at the Epoch landing point).
  • Bryn’s own multi-part commentaries
  • Hand and the  Art of Bryn Oh – In Her Own Words, a discussion with Bryn about her work.
• Further elements of the universe:
  • The Singularity of Kumiko, an installation in Second Life, courtesy of an Ontario Arts Council grant.
  • Watching the The Singularity of Kumiko machinima by Bryn Oh.
  • Watching the  Standby machinima by Bryn Oh.
• (Note that all videos listed can be watched in-world at the Epoch landing point with additional contextual videos.)

Bryn Oh’s Hand first appeared in Second Life is 2016, located on her arts region of Immersiva. At the time, it proved a highly popular installation, likely thanks to its nuanced tale that straddled the light and the dark places of life and offered a commentary on the possible future relationship between physical and virtual life. More recently, Bryn rebuilt Hand  entirely in mesh for Sansar, taking advantage of that platform’s particular capabilities, before porting the mesh build back to Second Life and her home region of Immersiva, giving it a new lease of life there, using SL’s particular presentation strengths.

As with much of Bryn’s work and such is her standing as an artist, Hand has been supported by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council – a part of which has required Bryn produce a machinima of the installation; and she is offering members of her Patreon group and readers of this blog an advanced viewing of the film, which you can find at the end of this article.

Hand is the story of a time when society transitioned to living and working in the virtual space. In this society people housed their bodies in inexpensive pods hooked up to food cannisters. They discarded their houses and furniture as they were no longer needed. They evolved past their physical bodies and lived digitally as the person they wanted to be. Overseeing all of this is a singularity AI named Milkdrop, first seen in the Singularity of Kumiko, though only now revealed to be an AI.

– Bryn Oh on Hand

In this, Hand, whilst an accessible piece in and of itself, offers a deeply layered story that reaches beyond its own pages. At its core, it is the story of children who have been left out of the VR “nirvana” entered into by adults, and who must fend for themselves. largely surviving by “borrowing” the condensed food used to feed the VR “dreamers” in their pods. For these children, any understanding of life and the world around them comes purely through the ideas of fairy tales and ancient copies of Dick and Jane books. They believe that the dreamers, like Sleeping Beauty, will one day awake and rejoin them – but until that time, they must strive to maintain life and family through the simple, idealised writing found in Dick and Jane.

We follow this story through the character of Flutter, a young girl who yearns for the touch and companionship of a mother. She sates some of this need through the plastic hand of a shop window mannequin, holding on to it as though it were the hand of a mother figure with whom she converses. Through Flutter and her conversations, we are connected to the rest of this world – a place that is perhaps unpleasant to both the rational and the emotive mind, both which may recoil from the themes offered. But that’s intentional; Hand is not supposed to be black-and-white. Rather, and like all of Bryn’s work, it is intended to provide a narrative and to challenge perception and raise questions.

The layering evident in the tale is highly nuanced, some of it contained within the central story, other elements reaching beyond it. For example, within the story we have the subtle parallel of between “dreaming” adults and awake children. The former have escaped reality into a virtual existence, whilst the latter find a more acceptable order to their reality by framing it in terms of the fictional happy family ideal of Dick and Jane.

But beyond, this, Hand reaches into the rest of Bryn’s immersive universe. As she noted herself, the AI Milkdrop is actually first witnessed in The Singularity of Kumiko (2016). It is also, perhaps, the intelligence that assisted human scientists create the robots from 26 Tines (2017), while those same scientists constructed the Rabbicorn we see in The Daughter of Gears (first seen in 2011 and again 2019), whilst the laboratory they use harkens back to 2011’s Standby.

Thus is it possible to bring these stories together on a time line, one in which Hand takes place some 120 years after The Daughter of Gears was built by her grieving mother, but only 20 years after the Rabbicorn discovered her in her Standby, whilst little more than a decade has passed since the events of The Singularity of Kumiko.

With my work I build for different types of people. There are those who have followed my work and know how to search for the deeper layers; they are the “experts”. For them, the story and time line are important. But I also try to build for people who know nothing about the history of the world I have created. So I build in layers: the top layer is for people who know nothing of my work and they enjoy the story on its own; the next layer is the story and then concepts within the story and the final layers are where the story fits into the time line.

– Bryn Oh

This broader layering is also reflected in some of those we meet in Hand, such as Milkdrop. Then there is also the character of Juniper, hidden under her blankets, and whom Flutter stops to visit on her way home. She is the central character in Bryn’s 2013 poem and machinima of the same name, and who also forms a part of Imogen and the Pigeons. Thus, through Hand, we discover more about Juniper’s huddled existence and why, in so strange and lonely world, she finds such security and comfort under her hole-riddled blankets.

Whilst stories in their own right, all sharing a common universe, there is something more within each of Bryn’s installations and pieces which reflects her thoughts and feelings in an almost journal-like fashion.

My work is almost a type of diary. I take things from my life or observations on society and incorporate them into the ongoing narrative. The idea is to create a parallel society we can recognise, but use very personal or emotional aspects of my own life to connect to the viewer. So as an artist if I take something from my own life, something I understand deeply and personally, I can convey that emotion to the viewer better than an idea that I have not lived. The first hand experiences let me detect the nuances that may be lost if I were to attempt to create something that I had not experienced.

– Bryn Oh

As immersive pieces, Bryn’s works are also somewhat experiential, in that  they often involve a lot of activity on the part of visitors. This is again intentional, as Bryn noted to me: having to work for something results in a deeper attachment to an installation, a sense of achievement on gains success, together with a personal connection to the story through that achievement. It may not be something that appeals to everyone, but it is something that undoubtedly adds significantly to the ability of her work to keep people visiting and in making repeated visits.

When looking at Bryn’s work as a whole, it is not unfair to say that she has, over 13 years, become one of the world’s foremost virtual artists, and through her work in Second Life, Sansar and other virtual mediums and environments – including the use of machinima as seenat the end of this article -, she is very much a pioneer in shaping a new artistic movement.

We had the Cubists, Impressionists, Surrealists, Modernists and I see our movement as the Immersivists. I have believed in this idea a long time but now with virtual reality headsets such as Vive or Oculus, the immersion is less fragile. You don’t look at a computer screen and beyond its borders see a bill that needs to be paid or your cell phone rings… instead you are in the world I have created and firmly there. Unlike painting where you stand from a distance and look at a static scene or cinema where you are told a story as a passive observer, virtual reality artwork can offer the ability to be an active participant in the art.

– Bryn Oh

As a pioneer, Bryn herself faces many challenges, up to and including being able to finance her virtual work. In this, she is keen to note the on-going support of the Ontario Arts Council, which has been vital to Hand’s renewal in Sansar and Second Life, as well as supporting her in some of her other installations and work.

Hand took me almost a year to build; to undertake a project like this with potentially few prospects is, as you can imagine, unwise. So the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council helps enormously. But what is more important to me is the psychological support they provide through their belief in me as an artist. I work alone; few among my family and friends understand what I do, nor are they particularly curious … Recognition by, and support from, the OAC, is something that reinvigorates my confidence and says to keep going and striving in this art medium that I truly believe in. So I would like to thank again the OAC and the great work they do.

– Bryn Oh

A further reflection of the depth and importance of Bryn’s work also lies in the fact that professor Carolyn Steele of the Communication and Culture department at York University, Toronto, is putting together a new course on Bryn’s work that will be presented at the university in the near future. 

For those of us unable to attend that course, we still have Hand to appreciate in Second Life and Sansar – and, doubtless, more stories to come out of Bryn’s universe. So for now I’ll leave you with the aforementioned video, as produced for OTC, and also offer my thanks to Bryn for all of her work in Second Life and Sansar, which means a lot to so many, and for giving me the time to answer questions and discuss her work in order to produce this article.

Related Links

• Hand in Second Life (Immersiva, rated: Moderate)
• Hand in Sansar
• Bryn Oh’s blog
• Bryn Oh’s Patreon

Bryn Oh first created Hand is Second Life in 2016. An immersive experience, it mixed art and storytelling with a touch of mystery and discovery.

Originally an installation that used Second Life Experience Keys, Hand recently transitioned to Sansar with the assistance of a grant from the Ontario Arts Council, and which I recently wrote about in Bryn Oh’s Hand in Sansar. That grant has also allowed Hand to once again be resurrected in Second Life.

In writing about Hand in 2016, I noted of the installation:

This [is a] journey takes us through a strange, broken urban setting with decaying, collapsing buildings; a place where adults are almost (but not entirely) absent, apparently leaving their children to fend for themselves. Technology is still active – drones  buzz around and project adverts on walls and floors for whoever might watch them – presumably as a form of currency / earning, and lights flicker and play. Walking through the streets and buildings there appears to be nods to dystopian sci-fi: a hint of Soyent Green here, a reference to rampant consumerism there. While Flit [the principal character] and the other children brought to mind shades of And The Children Shall Lead, minus the space alien angle.

– Bryn’s Hand in Second Life, December 2016

This is still true, as is the use of Experience Keys to assist visitors, instructions for which are provided at the landing point. What is different with this iteration is that rather than using a teleport to reach the actual starting point of the story – Flit sitting in an underground station – visitors must find their way through a tunnel from one station to the next, where Flit is waiting.

From here visitors once again travel up the escalator and out into the the run-down setting of a city well past its prime. Here the story will unfold by finding, and following Flit as she appears at various points in the installation, either pointing the way through the story or ready for a chapter of it to be told. As you approach the latter, you should hear the narration (assuming you have local sounds enabled). However, if no audio is obvious, make sure local sounds are on, and touch the microphone alongside Flit.

Aspects of the path through the story do require some care – making your way over tightrope-like planks and fallen towers for example, or climbing up piles of the detritus of humanity. Also, cleverly woven into the story are hooks to several other elements of  Bryn’s work – so don’t be afraid to touch things as you explore. Take the scene of the girl with the golden crown and her little entourage waiting to be found whilst exploring the rooms of the main building in the installation: touching the girl or the insects and creatures will offer you the chance to watch a video about The Girl with the Paper Crown.

Hand, whether visited in SL or Sansar – and a visit to both shows some of the core differences between the two – remains a captivating story, one that encourages us to fill-in the blanks through our own imaginations, adding to the richness of the tale Bryn tells through character, setting and the words of her narrator.

SLurl Details

• Hand (Immersiva, rated: Moderate)