Tag: Bryn Oh

The return of Bryn Oh’s Lobby Cam to Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bryn Oh: Lobby Cam, May 2022

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

Bryn Oh: Lobby Cam, May 2022

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

Bryn Oh: Lobby Cam, May 2022

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”.

Bryn Oh: Lobby Cam, May 2022

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.

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Bryn Oh’s Brittle Epoch in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bryn Oh: The Brittle Epoch

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

Bryn Oh: The Brittle Epoch

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).

Bryn Oh: The Brittle Epoch

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.

Bryn Oh: The Brittle Epoch

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!

Bryn Oh: The Brittle Epoch

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

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:

Cica and Bryn’s White Veil in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
White Veil, December 2020 – snowballs are a rollin’,rollin’, rollin’

Cica Ghost and Bryn Oh have once again teamed up to provide a little  light-hearted winter fun for those who feel like a little bit of a challenge with some avatar exercise.

White Veil, located on a snow-covered Homestead region under the patronage of Clementine Rosca, challenges visitors to make their way over wooden boards to a snowy valley between high peaks that winds up to where a strange tower twists its way up into the sky – and then climb the curving ramp of  said tower to reach the room at the top.

White Veil, December 2020 – will the magnets help or hinder you?

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? And it is – except for the gigantic snowballs that periodically rain from the sky to roll at random down the valley to sweep-up all that lies in their path. They are invariably followed by one true monster of a snowball that rumbles down the tower’s ramp to join its smaller brethren as they tumble down the valley.

Should you get caught by any of these great balls of snow, then you’re toast – or at least, you’re teleported back to the start line to try again. Nor are the snowballs alone in trying to hinder you. There are also white blocks lie  scattered around which, if you get too close will attempt to bounce you in the air, whilst blue bullets may be pelted at you from the tower’s open walls to try to delay you.

White Veil, December 2020, – meet the penguins

But, there is also assistance to be had. Scattered along the path are blue disks. Step on one and you’ll be enclosed in your own personal force-field for a time, impervious to snowballs blocks and bullets – just keep moving with the force field in order for it to benefit you the most. Magnets hanging over the curving ramp of the tower might also assist you by dragging you to them, and so up the slope – but they also might hinder, as once caught by one, it can be difficult to get free!

Nor is this all; while the goal is to reach the room at the top of the tower and witness the strangely garbed individual awaiting you there, so to are there opportunities to leave the valley and explore the lands beyond, occupied as they are by groups of Cica’s penguins, whilst pieces of Bryn’s art might also distract you.  Also to be found at the tower’s top is a narrow, snow-covered walkway leading to a flying chair; use the arrow and page Up / Down keys to manoeuvre it once seated.  A second narrow snowy walk can take you to a lonely television, whilst keeping an eye out for snow white pose balls might get you literally climbing the walls.

White Veil, December 2020 – having reached the top of the tower, I opted to take the flying chair back down, avoiding the snowballs

To experience the fun of White Veil, simply teleport over and then accept the experience associated with it (if you are a regular visitor at Bryn’s Immersiva, and have accepted the experience there, then you are actually all set). When you’ve done so, note the instruction about using Always Run (CTRL-R – although in places you might want to toggle it on / off. And for an added bit of fun, you could also try your hand at decoding the message in the region’s About Land description. It’s not hard, but all I’ll  say here is that it gives warning about the state of mind of certain flightless waterfowl …

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Bryn’s mythical creatures in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bryn Oh: Mythical Creatures

Now available at her Immersiva arts region, is Bryn Oh’s latest presentation Mythical Creatures, which is will have an official opening on Sunday, July 19th, 2020.

Perhaps the best way to describe this collection of 21 pieces is as a series of art collectibles, in that they come with a unique property, which I’ll get to shortly.

This was a fun project where I researched 20 legendary, mythical or creatures of folklore from around the world and re-imagined them. Some are well known such as the Dragon or Phoenix, but then there are more obscure ones like the Nariphon or the horrifying Manananngal.

– Bryn Oh on Mythical Creatures

Bryn Oh: Mythical Creatures

Each creature is presented as a 3D sculpture on a plinth bearing a brief description of the creature’s form. More detailed descriptions of the creatures and their histories, drawn from multiple sources, hang from the ceiling of the hall behind each of the sculptures. As Bryn notes, some of the creatures are very well known; others may ring bells without necessarily being something we’re actually deeply familiar with, whilst others are liable to be entirely new to us. For me, examples of the latter two would be the Baba Yaga – something I’d heard of, but not actually researched, and the Tatzelwurm, a creature I’d never heard of.

As well as the Russian Baba Yaga and Swiss Tatzelwurm mentioned above, the collection comprises: from Greek / Roman mythologies Capricorn, Cerberus, the griffin, Medusa, and the phoenix; from Japanese mythology: Jorōgumo, Kitsune and Ōmukade; from multiple folklores and mythologies: the dragon and the mermaid; together with the banshee (Irish mythology), the ettin, the kraken (Scandinavian), La Sayona (from Venezuela), the manananggal (Philippines), the nariphon (Buddhist legend), the Canadian Ogopogo, and the Chinese qilin.

Bryn Oh: Mythical Creatures

And in case you’re wondering why I reference 21 pieces, but only list 20 creatures, that’s because there is a bonus item in the collection, the Bryn Oh.

Bryn Oh is a pale white moth girl born on the Internet. She has curved glowing horns, cyberpunk interface plugs, wings or a neko tail. She is queen of the moths and creates stories and worlds with hidden meaning inside. She has magic and when threatened she can deform her enemies or launch them high in the air. She is drawn to music but often lurks on the outside listening and never dancing. Other creatures find her strange an melancholy.

– the description of the “Bryn Oh”

What is special about these creature is the manner in which they have been created in two parts: “left” and “right” as you look at each of them. Gacha machines within the exhibition halls allow visitors to obtain a random “left” or “right” half of a creature. Any “left” part of a creature can be combined with any “right” part of another creature to create an entirely new one. The clever part here is that whichever combination of to parts is put together, the descriptive text on the two plinth halves will always seamlessly combine to offer a description of the new creature.

Bryn’s own notes on combining a “left” and “right” half from two sculptures to creature a new creature

Thus, it is possible to creature any of the original creatures in the exhibition by collecting all of the different halves – with up to 441 combinations of creature to be created. Further, to help in the joining process, the individual halves have been scripted so that when placed together, they will correctly align and join.

Another interesting aspect of these creatures is the sources Bryn has drawn upon to creature their “mini biographies” hanging in the exhibition halls, and the manner in which set portrays some of them. With Medusa, for example, the focus is very much on her violation at the hands of Posidon – and for which Athena unfairly punished the young and beautiful girl, turning her into the monster with whom we are more familiar.

Bryn amongst her creations

As noted, Mythical Creatures officially opens on Sunday, July 19th, 2020, with a special event starting at 15:00 SLT. Skye Galaxy will be providing the music, supported by Semiiina. And when visiting, keep an eye open for Bryn’s flying machines that have appeared in her own mythologies and her floating / falling bricks that have also featured in her past work, and both of which – together with the design of the exhibition hall, very much hook Mythical Creatures into her universe.

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Cica and Bryn’s Social Distancing in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Social Distancing

Currently open at Bryn Oh’s Immersiva is Social Distancing, a join installation by Bryn and Cica Ghost. The title should immediately give away the theme of the installation.

I confess that in its current application around the world, I find the term “social distancing” an odd choice. In an era when social media has all but taken over our lives and allow many to say in contact half-way across the globe whilst often remaining distanced from those immediately around them, the idea of “social distancing” is perhaps something of a non-sequitur; as the SARS-CoV-2 virus relies on close physical proximity one to another, it’s seemed to me a more apt term for the phenomena we’ve seen sine February (in the west – earlier in places like the far east) should perhaps be “physical distancing”.

Social Distancing

Anyway, semantics aside, this cosy – in terms of size – installation offers a broad take on social / physical distancing and its impact it has had on us. Within a watery, overgrown garden environment surrounded on three sides by great concrete walls (the state of the garden and the high walls themselves possible metaphors).

A rough path winds through the overgrown landscape, offering a path to various vignettes signifying the state and anxieties of people and society. A man sits at the window of his house, the room behind him stacked with toilet rolls and he has a pair of binoculars in hand as he looks towards his mailbox. The flag is up and letters lie within, but he appears too worried to make the trip out to collect them. Further along the zig-zagging path, a couple sit on a boat – but at opposite ends, unable to express themselves more intimately to one another by holding hands or simply sitting side-by side.

Social Distancing

Further still long the path is a little village scene where the occupants of the houses all express various reactions to having to remain isolated. Some, more able to adapt, perhaps, use carrier pigeons (an analogy for more modern means of connecting to others?) to pass letters back and forth. Others sit at their windows and worry. One simply hides behind his curtain, peeking in terror at the world from around the edge of it. Should you wish to be a part of this vignette, there are a couple of houses with single poses included.

There’s a certain poignancy to all of these little houses and their occupants that may perhaps touch us in different ways. For many of us, making the transition to the kind of lifestyle social / physical distancing has brought about hasn’t been dramatically hard in the scheme of things. We have our Facebook, our You Tube our WhatsApp – and yes, our Second Life – to maintain contact and engage with family and friends.  But what about those who find being on their own hard – such as the elderly or those psychological issues? Seeing the face crammed into a corner of a house window and peering around the edge of the curtain, I was immediately reminded of an interview with a doctor who has been trying to help those whose psychosis requires physical proximity to others in order to help them avoid giving into their inner demons and voices.

Social Distancing

Another subtle element in the installation alludes to the risk countries and people face in pushing to get back to “business as usual” too soon. There is a real risk – as has been seen with past epidemics and pandemics – that trying to relax rules around social / physical distancing, etc., too soon could lead to a second or even third wave of the SARS-CoV-2 / Covid-19 situation striking the world. Within Social Distancing, this risk is seen by the presence of “Corona Monsters” among the bushing and floating in the water. they appear to lying in wait, ready to strike should those in the little houses all decide to come out and start mingling.

A timely and engaging installation, reached via the teleport board at the Immersiva landing point, and complete with gacha machines for those wishing to obtain some of the models used in the exhibit or to support Cica and Bryn.

Social Distancing

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Hand and the art of Bryn Oh – in her own words

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bryn Oh, Hand – Sansar

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

Bryn Oh: Hand – Second Life, 2020

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.

Bryn Oh – Hand, Second Life: Flutter and a sleeper. Credit: Bryn Oh

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.

Bryn Oh – Hand, Second Life: Milkdrop the AI and Flutter. Credit: Bryn Oh

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

Bryn Oh in Second Life, by Jamisson Burnstein

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.

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